<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>You, Darkness, That I Come From by Ben_Solo_Good_Boy_Sweater_Emporium</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897017">You, Darkness, That I Come From</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ben_Solo_Good_Boy_Sweater_Emporium/pseuds/Ben_Solo_Good_Boy_Sweater_Emporium'>Ben_Solo_Good_Boy_Sweater_Emporium</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), I have issues with the Jedi, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Mental Anguish, Not Dark Rey But A Bit Darker, One True Pairing, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Romantic Soulmates, Slow Romance, Soft Ben Solo, Talking, The Force Ships It (Star Wars), This is my free therapy, and the fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:48:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>28,436</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897017</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ben_Solo_Good_Boy_Sweater_Emporium/pseuds/Ben_Solo_Good_Boy_Sweater_Emporium</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Canonverse post-TLJ</p><p>In which Rey is not wholly satisfied being a passive vessel for other people's legacies and expectations.</p><p>She wants to be herself.</p><p>Not Jedi Rey. </p><p>Not Dark Rey. </p><p>Just Rey.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>140</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Listen to the musn'ts, child, listen to the don'ts.<br/>Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.<br/>Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me.<br/>Anything can happen, child, anything can be.</p><p>Shel Silverstein</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <strong> No.<br/><br/></strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>NO!</strong>
  </em>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong> I never…I didn’t want this. </strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Her skin itches and burns. She can’t get used to the weight of the most threadbare covering. Even now, after months, she bolts up clawing at the fabric as if it means to strangle her.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey?” comes a muffled call from the other side of the room. Since Rose recovered from her injuries, the two have been assigned to quarters together. As much as Rey has always yearned for company, for friendship, the involuntary intimacy is abrasive. A lifetime on Jakku has not conditioned her to share.</p><p>
  
</p><p>“You okay?” the other woman whispers toward the wall. “Another nightmare?”</p><p> </p><p>Her cheeks are hot with embarrassment. “Sorry I woke you,” she manages, breath coming in little pants. “Go back to sleep.”</p><p> </p><p>The room is brighter than she would like, a consequence of the long daylight cycles on this world. Rose rolls toward her, clutching her own covers under her chin. Her eyes are soft with sympathy. Rey hates it.</p><p> </p><p>“You should really talk to someone,” Rose advises, not for the first time.</p><p> </p><p>A trickle of sweat rolls down the line of her back, making her shiver. Not so long ago, she wouldn’t have noticed. Now, in this new era of <em>your assigned sonic day is</em> and <em>laundry disposal happens there</em>, she shifts uncomfortably. She is changing, and not always in ways she welcomes.</p><p> </p><p>She realizes Rose is waiting for a response. For all the years she existed in silence, she never expected that someday she’d be pressed to speak against her will. “I told you, there’s no point. I can never remember what they’re about after I wake up.”</p><p> </p><p>Rose stifles a yawn. She only just turned in from overnight duty. Rey feels familiar guilt at disrupting her rest, before a rush of defensiveness follows behind. Hasn’t she asked to sleep alone? Didn’t she go to the general after the first few incidents and request more privacy? Leia told her, kindly but firmly, that everyone in the Resistance must be treated equally. Rey came away feeling she’d been given a hearing but not heard. She couldn’t help wondering if <em>he</em> had felt the same.</p><p> </p><p>“You said it again,” Rose observes quietly, then adds, “It’s clearly the same dream every time. That must mean…something?” The question hangs in the air, a tacit invitation. Rose has spoken of her sister often enough for Rey to understand how deeply she misses Paige, and how keenly she mourns the loss of their connection, their confidences. Imagining the effort of trying to step into that hole leaves her feeling hopelessly inadequate.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s nearly time for me to get up anyway,” she deflects, wiping sleep from her eyes. “There are a few things I need to take care of on the <em>Falcon</em> before morning meal.”</p><p> </p><p>Her boots are exactly where she left them, propped against the bed frame. Rose has given up trying to persuade her to change into sleepwear. It’s a custom she doesn’t think she can ever adopt. How can you feel secure enough to rest if you aren’t prepared to fight or flee in an instant? She can barely bring herself to relax barefooted.</p><p> </p><p>Rey is aware of the other woman’s lingering stare as the door slides shut behind her. She wonders whether Rose has told anyone about her strange roommate who sleeps in day clothes, quarterstaff always within reach. Not maliciously—Rose isn’t like that. But she spends a lot of time with Finn and Poe and Connix, and (normal) people talk.</p><p> </p><p>It’s still very early. The corridor is deserted. Since barely escaping Crait with their lives, the Resistance hasn’t stopped in any one location for long, just to be safe. This is the sixth site they’ve occupied in as many months, an old administration complex in an abandoned mining town. She can’t recall the name of the planet. It hardly matters; they won’t be staying.</p><p> </p><p>Unlike their previous refuges, this one doesn’t need to be concealed. The building is supposed to be standing here. And though it’s small, so few of them survived the attack by the First Order that they all fit inside. Two to a room, of course.</p><p> </p><p>The one thing they do have to hide is the <em>Falcon</em>. It’s fairly well camouflaged by the forest abutting the eastern edge of the settlement. Rey is uneasy being even a few minutes’ walk from their only means of escape. She volunteered to sleep onboard as the night terrors became more frequent, but General Organa preferred everyone to remain within the protection of their defenses. Rey wanted to point out that she felt far safer on the freighter than she did in a musty storage room with too many windows, but for the sake of keeping the peace, she didn’t argue.</p><p> </p><p>There are things she needs to do on the ship—that isn’t a lie—but just now, she doesn’t feel like doing any of them. Instead, as she reaches the edge of the clearing where it sits, she eyes a nearby tree and begins to climb. The dawn air is cool and still, and the exertion calms her. Finn finds it hilarious that Rey is a natural tree climber, given that she came from barren Jakku. But the local species are densely limbed and sturdy, so it’s not unlike scaling a turbolift shaft in a Star Destroyer. She has plenty of experience with that.</p><p> </p><p>She spots a branch wide enough for sitting and straddles it, back wedged against the coarse trunk. There isn’t much of a view in the center of the canopy. But it’s peaceful to be alone while still enfolded in the energy of all the living things around her, flying and scurrying and slithering by with no expectations, no demands to make.</p><p> </p><p>Demands like Rose’s. She has repeatedly urged Rey to talk to someone, as though talking ever accomplished anything. Who can she tell and where would she start? Only one person knows the fiery trials she has been through since leaving her planet. Only one understands her disillusionment with Luke Skywalker and her bewilderment at Leia Organa, equal parts kind and aloof. Only one has felt her feelings and thought her thoughts and bent the laws of time and space to reach for her in her loneliest moment.</p><p> </p><p>But he is the last person she should ask for help.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ben.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Just thinking it feels like a transgression. Kylo Ren is the hateful choice he made, cowering behind a false name and a false face. Maybe it’s sheer stubbornness, or perversity, but the fact that he wants the galaxy to see only the monster makes her cling tighter to the name his parents gave him. Somehow the tiny word is a tether, a sliver of his rejected humanity, and she refuses to surrender it.</p><p> </p><p>The Force bond that erupted on Ahch-To is now dormant. She hasn’t seen or spoken to Ben since she caught a final glimpse of him on Crait, broken and alone. Her satisfaction was brief but savage. <em>Was it worth it</em>, she wanted to howl? <em>Will you sit on your ugly throne and remember what you lost? </em>Is it wrong that she hopes he does? Isn’t it wicked to wish suffering on another?</p><p> </p><p>She tried to hold onto the fury she felt, when he smothered the ember just starting to catch fire between them. But the anger soon drowned under sorrow, and that is all she is left with in these hollow moments.</p><p> </p><p>Squeeze and release…squeeze and release. She studies her own hands as dispassionately as if they belong to a stranger. When she realizes the extended fingers look like they are straining toward each other, she is disgusted with herself. She shouldn’t be thinking about him. Shouldn’t in a million years want to see him again. But the pull remains. She’s little better than the spice junkies skulking around the fringes of Niima Outpost, their single-minded goal the next hit, the next short-lived tang of ecstasy.</p><p> </p><p>She needs to get her feet back on solid ground. Chewie is most likely awake and already at work. They’ve been having trouble with the portside sensor array, a tool they can hardly afford to be without given the circumstances. But she doesn’t move. Instead, she closes her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Poe always jokes that he flies best when he thinks least. Rey suspects that if she has any hope of progressing with her abilities, it will only be on that sort of instinctual path. She despises meditation. The Jedi texts leave her baffled and irritated. But the Force still makes itself known to her. It shimmers and pulses beyond the veil of her eyelids, so immediately tangible that she fights the urge to grab for it.</p><p> </p><p>She perceives most strongly what isn’t there. <em>Who</em> isn’t there. It’s madness to think he will speak to her, let alone be willing to help. It’s equally mad that she is somehow determined to try anyway. Rey can be accused of many things, but cowardice isn’t among them.</p><p> </p><p><em>You’re not alone</em>, he promised her that night in the rain. She remembers the fire, the jolt when skin met skin. That person—intense but gentle—is the one she needs.</p><p> </p><p>Layers of conscious awareness peel away as she turns inward. It’s like leaving the noise and confusion of the mess hall at meal time, finally being able to hear yourself think beyond its walls. He is here, somewhere in the cosmos, and all she has to do is find the correct alignment, the sympathetic pitch, the frequency that only they resonate on together. She knows she can do it, so long as he has not decided to shut her out for good.</p><p> </p><p>And suddenly he appears, stretched out in front of her as if he is balanced precariously on the branch. He’s asleep but not peacefully. His body jerks and twitches. Damp strands of hair stick to his forehead. The Force spirals crazily around him, a vortex at the center of his own private storm.</p><p> </p><p>It is a reflex born of simple compassion that makes her reach out and lightly stroke his temple, nothing more. Two things happen at once. Ben sucks in a loud, ragged breath. Then he, the trees and the sun disappear.</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Something has gone terribly wrong. This is the place he is supposed to be safe but they have hurt him. </em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p><strong> <em>Or rather, they </em> </strong> <strong>want</strong> <strong> <em> to hurt him.</em> </strong></p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>That is something that can never be allowed to happen.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Slices of white heat fracture the black air and then everything—everything—is burning.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Rey yanks her hand back, clutching it to her chest. The pads of her fingers feel raw, as if he has somehow scorched her. Ben launches up from his interrupted nightmare, as she did not an hour ago, twisting around to glare at her.</p><p> </p><p>“You,” he hisses, chafing at the spot where she touched him. “What did you do?!”</p><p> </p><p>If only the Resistance could see her, perched high in a tree with the Supreme Leader of the First Order.</p><p> </p><p>“What did you do?” he demands again, coldly furious even as his breathing slows.</p><p> </p><p>She winces slightly, massaging her aching hand. “Hello to you, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Answer the question,” Ben—she refuses to think of him as anything else—snarls. He may not have blocked their connection but he doesn’t welcome it. And perhaps he would have blocked her entirely had he been awake. This might all be a terrible mistake.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t do anything,” she retorts angrily. “At least, not on purpose. You were having a bad dream. I was just trying to…to wake you up.”</p><p> </p><p>He looks pointedly at her fingers. “By doing what?”</p><p> </p><p>She blushes, glancing at his temple. A welt is forming. “That part I’m a little less clear on,” she admits.</p><p> </p><p>His indignation is palpable and under that, a flavor of something else she can’t categorize. “You don’t actually expect me to fall for this again? Poor little Jedi, who doesn’t know her own strength?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not a Jedi and I never claimed to be one.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure they’d be very relieved to hear that, if they weren’t all busy being dead. Trust me, the lonely orphan story was far more compelling.”</p><p> </p><p>The space between them seems to compress under the weight of their mutual hostility. “You bastard,” she sputters. “How dare you—?”</p><p> </p><p>“Spare me the performance,” he interrupts. “I’m tired of your lies.”</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, she forgets she is teetering on a branch and nearly loses her balance. “My lies? Mine? That’s rich coming from you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I never lied. You can’t say the same.”</p><p> </p><p>“What in the kriffing hell are you talking about? I never lied to you.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben’s expression is smug. It’s just the opening he wants. “You did worse. You lied to yourself. I offered you my hand. I begged you to stay. And you wanted to, I felt it. You wanted to but instead, you talked yourself into believing that you shouldn’t. That it was wrong. That’s a lie, Rey, and you know it.” He shakes his head, voice rough with disappointment. “I never would have expected you to be so spineless.”</p><p> </p><p>Before she can formulate a sufficiently cutting response, he turns away. “Enough. This is a waste of time.”  He <em>expels</em> her from his mind so abruptly that all the air leaves her lungs, though her body never moves. She blinks in shock but Ben has vanished.</p><p> </p><p>Only later, parsing each word that passed between them, does she identify the other current of emotion underpinning his antagonism.</p><p> </p><p>It’s hurt.</p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>Chewbacca isn’t one to insert himself into the business of others. But when Rey slams a spanner down hard enough to crack a console panel, he feels justified in inviting her to head back to base and let him finish up. She runs into Finn as she steps into the building.</p><p> </p><p>“There you are,” he calls cheerfully, leaving the comms room and falling into step beside her. “I was wondering what happened. Not like you to miss a meal.” His tone is playful. When she doesn’t respond he asks, “Everything alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she nods absently. “Fine. I had some stuff to do on the <em>Falcon</em>. Lost track of time, is all.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait a minute,” he chuckles, “you expect me to believe you just forgot to eat?”</p><p> </p><p>It’s the second time this morning she’s been called a liar. Her temper, already too close to the surface, flares. “Believe whatever you like,” she snaps, jaw clenched.</p><p> </p><p>Finn grabs hold of her wrist, stopping their walk toward a back staircase jammed with damaged equipment and dusty packing crates. “Okay, let’s try this again. What’s wrong? And can I help or is it secret Jedi stuff?”</p><p> </p><p>She feels instant remorse, taking her resentment at Ben out on someone else. Finn knows what it’s like to grow up without a family. They have that in common. Then again, Finn’s parents didn’t discard him; he was stolen from them. And he didn’t grow up alone or impoverished, but fed and housed with other stormtroopers. He’s able to make friends more easily than Rey. It’s a testament to what a good person he is that he’s constantly checking in with her, nudging her to be more sociable, asking what he can do to make things easier.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she offers sincerely. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. And I honestly did forget to come back in time for morning meal, so I’m doubly cranky. That’s no excuse to be hateful to you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about it.” He squeezes her forearm affectionately. “We’re all edgy these days. The constant moving isn’t helping. You sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think I may try to grab a nap.” The idea comes to her as she says it.</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds good. I’m heading out with Poe on perimeter patrol soon.”</p><p> </p><p>Things have been quiet since they landed on…she still can’t remember the name of the bloody planet. Most days, the two men volunteer for patrol together, if only to have something to do. Poe is increasingly restless without a ship to fly, though there is good news on that front, at least. They have finally made contact with the few remaining members of Black Squadron, pilots away on missions when D’Qar was struck. Soon there will be a handful of X-wings to escort the <em>Falcon</em> to its next berth.</p><p> </p><p>They step apart to let a couple of techs pass. “So how is the Jedi stuff coming? Making any headway on the old books?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey sighs. A dull pain is building in her skull, the latest in a series of headaches she’s been experiencing for months. “A little. Threepio is helping me translate the runes. But knowing what they say doesn’t necessarily tell me what they mean.”</p><p> </p><p>He squints in confusion. “You mean like a poem?”</p><p> </p><p>She wishes. “More like a riddle. Hundreds of riddles, actually.”</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t there anyone you can talk to, anyone who might understand what they mean?”</p><p> </p><p>The pressure behind her eyes makes her long for a dark corner to curl up in. She thinks inexplicably of her walker on Jakku. <em>Stars</em>, who could have ever predicted she would think kindly of that hellhole?</p><p> </p><p>“No, there’s no one. At least, no one I know about. Luke Skywalker was the last Jedi.” She does not care to mention that at least one former Jedi is very much alive.</p><p> </p><p>Finn is still in problem-solving mode. “Does it have to be a Jedi? Could it just be someone who knows a lot about the Force? Someone who’s ridiculously old and traveled all over the galaxy? A person who’s been around that long, seen that many things, must be able to solve at least one of those riddles.”</p><p> </p><p>“You mean Maz.” The thought has occurred to her before but she hasn’t pursued it. She doesn’t think it likely that Maz Kanata, Pirate Queen of the Mid-Rim, will be interested in spending long periods of time helping her decipher old books. Finn seems to think it’s a good idea, though. Maybe she should reconsider. “Next time she brings a shipment, I’ll speak to her. Thanks. Sorry again for being snippy.”</p><p> </p><p>He waves his hand dismissively. “Already forgiven. Get some sleep. But don’t forget to wake up in time for midday meal.” He backs down the hallway, joking, “We’ve got too few people as it is. We don’t need you murdering anyone.”</p><p> </p><p>Finn means nothing by the comment but a whisper of dread wafts up her spine.</p><p> </p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>The room is empty, Rose’s pallet neatly straightened. Rey is relieved to see her bunkmate has not tidied the other cot, its blanket and linens still twisted and pooling on the floor. Rose must have returned to duty after only a few hours’ rest. Unlike Poe and Finn, who have comparatively few responsibilities these days, Commander Tico is overwhelmed with the demands of keeping the Resistance operational. Maybe <em>she</em> should be the one talking to someone. General Organa is very big on equal treatment, after all.</p><p> </p><p>Instead of climbing into bed, Rey shoves the fabrics aside and drags a makeshift work tray from under the frame. Tinkering usually helps her unwind. Spread across its surface are small tools and the shattered remnants of a lightsaber. So far, she has only attempted to disassemble one half of the severed weapon.</p><p> </p><p>Poe asks almost daily for progress reports. He seems to believe their collective fortunes will improve if only Rey will hurry up and finish. But the lightsaber is the most complex and delicate object she has ever worked on. She’s begun to suspect that even the fine instruments she borrowed will not be enough. Each Jedi built their own saber; they surely used the Force to do it. Maybe it was a formal test, one she is definitely not prepared to take.</p><p> </p><p>The most pressing problem is the ruined focusing crystal. Each jagged half is still attached to its respective section of hilt. Where in the galaxy is she supposed to go to replace a thing like that? Rey doesn’t need a mystical book full of prophesies and platitudes. She needs a repair manual.</p><p> </p><p>Already exasperated, she slides the tray out of sight and flops onto the mattress, rubbing at her pounding head. As urgently as she needs to fix the lightsaber, handling it just makes her think about the day it was wrecked.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Damn him.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <em>Slices of white heat fracture the black air and then everything—everything—is burning.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>He is here, looking terrified and amazed and revolted.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>No.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>NO!</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>I never…I didn’t want this.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>“Rey, wake up. It’s alright, it’s just a bad dream. Wake up, dear.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia Organa leans over her, shaking her gently back to consciousness. She’s disoriented, both from the intensity of the vision and the strangeness of resting in daylight hours. “General—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The older woman smiles. “We’re all alone here. You should probably call me Leia. Less horribly formal.” She crosses the room and makes herself at home on Rose’s bed. “Sorry about the lack of chairs.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I suppose I’d rather have a bed than a chair,” Rey allows, pulling herself up to tug her clothes into more presentable shape for a meeting with her commanding officer. “Sitting on the floor is easy enough, sleeping a little less so. In case you’re assessing options for our next base.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia lets out a huff of laughter, then cocks her head. “I imagine you’d like to know why I’m here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She has a suspicion but works to keep her face neutral. “If you’d like to tell me,” she hedges.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That earns her a heartier laugh. “I can see you’re taking the ‘serene Jedi’ mantle seriously.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maybe that’s how it looks from the outside.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And inside?” Leia asks quietly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She isn’t used to articulating her feelings. “Most days, it’s not ‘serene’ so much as ‘howling wind storm.’”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The general gives her a searching look and a quick nod of understanding. Then she draws in a breath. “Rey, normally I don’t like to pry. We’re all adults here and I trust every one of you with my life. But I also trust all of us to look out for each other. I can see that joining the Resistance has been…challenging for you. That’s completely understandable. But there are so few of us left now and, let’s just say, things have begun to get back to me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey feels her muscles tense but Leia soldiers on, “Don’t be offended. We’re a close-knit group and people care about you. You and I haven’t known each other long but even I can see that your demeanor has changed over the past few months. I’m sorry to put you on the spot like this but I really think we need to discuss it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What have you heard?” Rey asks in a small voice. It’s second nature to keep her cards close to the chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m told that you seem by turns anxious, sad or furious. That you avoid interacting with others. That you aren’t getting much sleep, in part because of recurring nightmares.” At her pinched expression, Leia admonishes mildly, “Don’t be mad at Rose. She isn’t the only person I’ve spoken with. I pretty much ordered her to tell me what’s going on. And for the record, she’s worried about you. She isn’t alone in that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Decades of diplomatic missions have made Leia excellent at sitting through lengthy stalemates. Unfortunately for her, the only person in the Resistance better at waiting is also in the room. The younger woman bounces her leg slightly to ease the tension in her body, and worries the inside of her lip. She will <em>not</em> cry in front of Leia Organa.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After a long moment, Leia prompts, “Did I miss anything?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Minor headaches, but I suspect those are just caused by the fatigue.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How long has all this been going on?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Since Crait,” Rey acknowledges.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia exhales. “This is why you asked for your own quarters. But why didn’t you explain any of this then?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey picks at the fraying hem of the blanket. It’s obvious where the conversation is heading and she isn’t sure she can look at Leia as she confesses. “I didn’t want to bother you. There were a lot of other things going on.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The general stands up and walks to the windows. “I gather there’s quite a lot going on here that I’m not aware of. Is that a fair assessment?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes.” She doesn’t offer more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did you want me to guess?” Leia asks wryly. Rey can just feel the edges of the general’s impatience. She genuinely wants to help but there are so many matters that require her oversight that it’s difficult for her to spend much time on any one of them. This must be what Ben’s childhood was like.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s hard to talk about.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you regretting your decision to join the Resistance? Would you like to return to your home world, because we can—?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Stars</em>, no!” she cuts in heatedly. “I never want to go back there. Ever. It was horrid.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alright then,” Leia regroups. “Is it something more personal? Someone here you don’t get along with? Or,” she hesitates, “perhaps someone you’d like to know better?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey squirms, not for the reasons Leia thinks, but the older woman seems to suspect she’s on the right track. “It would be very normal for that sort of thing to happen at this stage of your life. It can be awkward, even painful, but it’s something nearly everyone goes through at one time or another.” Her voice softens. “As a matter of fact, I was your age when I first met Han.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She can feel Leia watching her. Her face is hot enough to melt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not…that is…it’s not what you think,” she stammers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia leans against the window frame, crossing her arms. “You know, I don’t think of myself as being a Force user. Not like Luke or…other members of my family. I’ve always just thought of myself as being good at reading people. But I can’t work out what I’m sensing from you right now. ‘Howling wind storm’ is not far off.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is excruciating. She wants it over. “Things have been confusing since Crait. With Luke gone, I have no idea what to do about this…this power inside me.” <em>Not that Luke ever intended to train me, or cared what happened to me,</em> she wants to say but doesn’t. “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful but it’s been hard to get used to everything here. It’s very different from what I’ve known all my life.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She makes herself look at the other woman. “And there’s something else. Something I should have told you before but I didn’t know how.” Her palms are damp; a wave of queasiness overtakes her. “I know that Kylo Ren is your son.” Leia’s face drains of color. “I know his real name is Ben. And I know what happened to him at Luke’s school years ago. You see,” she tries to swallow but can’t, “I’ve been dreaming about that night for months.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Leia falters. “I just cannot quite comprehend this.” She’s returned to Rose’s bed and sits rigid, her attention fixed with laser-like intensity. “You say you first saw each other on Ahch-To?” At Rey’s nod, she questions, “And when did you see each other last?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We, um…this morning.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This morning?” The general looks more thunderstruck than Rey has ever seen her. “The Supreme Leader of the First Order was here, on Lodanna, today?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So that’s the name of the planet. By the time she learns it, she’ll never see it again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He wasn’t <em>here</em>,” she hastens to clarify. “We don’t…travel. We see the other person, not their surroundings. He’d appear to me sitting there just as you are. But he would see me sitting inside his Star Destroyer. I promise you, he doesn’t know where we are or anything about our status.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia is unconvinced. “But you said the two of you can read each other minds?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not like that. I can’t just dig around inside his head and give you troop placements or battle plans. We can only hear each other when we’re trying to.” No need to add that the occasional errant thought, or emotion, slips by. The ones that come through most strongly are not things she is prepared to share with Ben’s mother.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The older woman rubs her neck tiredly. “You and my son are so strongly linked through the Force that you can see and speak to each other across entire star systems. You had a vision that he would turn back to the Light, so you went to the <em>Supremacy</em> to…to rescue him.” She pushes off the mattress and begins to pace the narrow span of floor. “And you’re telling me that my son killed Snoke to save you? Someone—forgive me—someone he had only met a few days earlier?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The implication behind the question makes her stomach churn. Why did Ben murder his own father at Snoke’s command, only to betray him for a total stranger mere hours after?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And Luke admitted to you that he was to blame for Ben turning to the Dark Side. That he nearly killed Ben in his sleep.” She is talking more to herself than to Rey. They’ve been over this particular part of the story several times already. “But how are the nightmares connected?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not sure. Until today I couldn’t remember them. Rose tells me I say the same thing every time, something like, ‘I didn’t want this.’ She’s the one who suggested it was a recurring dream. But I never realized what it was about until you woke me up just now.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why do you think that is?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Maybe it’s because I saw B—him this morning. We haven’t connected since Crait.” It’s too bizarre, too intimate, to say his name casually to Leia.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How does it work, exactly? Could he just appear here while we’re talking?” A flicker of emotion flashes across Leia’s face. It might be simple curiosity, or mad hope.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s normally just the two of us. Though Luke did catch a glimpse of him on Ahch-To. He was so enraged he blew a stone hut apart.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia’s voice is barely audible when she asks, “How is he?” As adept as she is at burying her emotions, the pain behind the question is profound.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He hates himself. He’s torn apart with shame and regret about what he did to Han. And he’s so lonely—" Rey chokes back a sob. “I was certain he would turn. But in that moment…he made a different choice.”</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>Whatever this thing is between us, it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>Leia’s shoulders sag. She looks careworn in the pall of the filthy windows. “I’m going to say something that will be difficult to hear. As much as I love my son—and I do, even after everything he’s done—he is on a path I cannot follow. My duty is to protect and serve the Resistance, and those we fight for across the galaxy. I will never stop hoping Ben finds his way home. But I can’t allow my personal feelings to cloud my judgement. And neither can you.” Her voice grows stronger as she speaks. Sterner.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Something in Rey riots. “How can he ‘find his way home’ without help?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Han tried to help. He died for it,” Leia retorts. “I know this must seem cold-hearted to you. But I can’t lose anyone else trying to save a person who doesn’t want to be saved. I’m going to have to order you to sever all contact with Kylo Ren. The Resistance is teetering on the brink of extinction as it is. It’s simply too risky to be communicating with him in any way.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You said it was possible to block the connection, correct? You’ll need to learn to do that.” She straightens suddenly. “I want to talk more about this but I really must go. I need one more thing from you first. I need your promise that you will not tell anyone else about any of this. It’s very important, Rey. It only took an accusation that I was related to Darth Vader to cost me a career in the Galactic Senate. Who would support the rebuilding of the Resistance if they knew my child is leading the First Order?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s an easy enough pledge to make. “I didn’t want to tell you. I’m not going to start spreading it all over the base.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia nods then heads for the door. Reaching for the wall panel, she pauses as though there is more she wants to say. But she must think better of it, because she leaves without another word.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Three days later, they leave Lodanna. Rumors abound that General Organa has called in favors across the regions. Wherever they are headed, it will be well supplied with ships and munitions, supplies and equipment. With any luck, Black Squadron will arrive with new recruits in tow. Rey wishes she shared the general excitement. She is too realistic to believe any of it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Poe pilots the <em>Falcon </em>with Chewie; he asks Rey with such a pleading expression on his face that she doesn’t have the heart to deny him. Their final destination is classified, to minimize the chances they’ll be intercepted. When the Resistance lands, hardly anyone onboard knows where they actually are.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Welcome to Tython,” the general announces from the top of the ramp, as the rest of the ship’s complement disembarks. “We’ll only be here a day or so, just long enough to receive a shipment of supplies. Commander D’Acy and Lieutenant Connix will be overseeing construction of temporary housings and distribution of rations.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You coming?” Rose asks, grabbing an armload of gear and carrying it off the ship. She’s been trying to start a conversation between them for the entire flight, with little success. Rey isn’t angry, exactly, at being reported on to Leia, but she can’t help feeling wary. Just now, though, wariness is not what’s diverting her attention.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tython is <em>loud</em>. It’s the loudest planet she’s ever been on, including Ahch-To. The Force doesn’t hum unobtrusively in the background of her perception. It’s a clarion call so overpowering it makes concentrating on anything else difficult. One look at Leia’s face lets her know the other woman hears it, too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What is this place?” she asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The general stares out into the sunshine beyond the hatch. “I’m not sure. I’ve never been here before. Maz recommended it as a good rendezvous point. She and her crew should be here sometime within the next rotation.” She glances back at the younger woman. “We won’t have a lot of spare time but I did ask her to talk to you. She’s not a Jedi, of course, but perhaps there’s something she can do to help.” Leia’s words are friendly enough but Rey detects a measure of guardedness behind them. Apparently, she isn’t the only one reluctant to trust these days.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>He is here, looking terrified and amazed and revolted, simultaneously the man she knows and a boy she only recognizes.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>No.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>NO!</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>I never…I didn’t want this.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>Is she the one that says it? Or is it the man-boy, at once so familiar and alien?</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>The heat is intense. Lightning splits the sky. A noxious smell blankets everything, coppery sweet: bodies are aflame.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>When her eyes fly open, darker ones are staring back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I thought I told you to stay <em>out</em> of my head,” Ben growls, but his hostile tone is undermined by the way his gaze strays down her body as he speaks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I wish I could,” she snaps. “It isn’t a very enjoyable place to visit.” The smoky ozone memory sits acrid on her tongue.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For a moment, they lay side-by-side in silence, glowering at each other. Rey is grateful she chose to sleep under the <em>Falcon</em>, rather than staying with the rest of the group in a bivouac set up farther out in the meadow. She wonders if Leia is awake, if she senses her lost child so close by.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben is scanning her face, like he’s trying to puzzle something out. “Where are you?” he demands abruptly. “Why are you so…?” He doesn’t finish.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You must be joking. There’s no way I’m telling you where I am.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He scoffs. “As if I give a damn which rock the Resistance is skulking under these days. You don’t have enough people to field a phrenbi team. That’s not why I was asking.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then why are you asking? Miss me?” It’s a risky game to play, alluding to things they both know to be true but don’t say out loud.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His voice is dangerously low in the dark. “Funny, it seems like you’re the one who keeps trying to connect with me. Having second thoughts about leaving?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I wasn’t trying anything. I was asleep.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You were wide awake the last time we saw each other. And on Ahch-To.” Is he leaning nearer or is she imagining things? “Admit it, Rey. You want to talk to me again.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She decides honesty is her best option. “Yes, I do. If you remember, you’re the one who pushed me out.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This brings him up short; he expected a denial. But he won’t give her the satisfaction of asking the obvious question: why? Instead, he bides his time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re projecting so strongly,” he says distractedly, almost to himself. Ben has always been more interested in investigating the mystery of their bond than she has. “Not like a projection at all. Like…you’re here.” In her surprise at waking to find him next to her, she hasn’t immediately noticed how solid and present he appears.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Slowly, deliberately, he extends a single, long finger and traces the bones of her wrist. Her heartbeat thuds dully in her ears. She shouldn’t feel like this every time he touches her. A shudder ripples down her neck and she’s annoyed because of course he’ll gloat at the effect it has on her. But he doesn’t gloat. His lips part around a sharp little expulsion of air. He feels it, too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Force envelopes them in chaotic swirls and eddies. Something is about to happen, something she’ll only mostly regret.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Aren’t you curious what I wanted to talk about?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s definitely closer. “Right now? Not as much as you might think.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s difficult to keep still while his fingertip scribes leisurely circles onto her skin. “Tired of my lies, no doubt.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Tired of you lying to yourself about what you really want. Maybe you are, too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Am I? </em>a faithless part of her wonders. <em>Maybe I am.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s a minor commotion from the encampment, sudden activity visible in the pale light of twin moons. The unmistakable sounds of a ship on final approach pierce the night. Maz’s freighter is landing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey is distracted for only a second or two, but it’s enough to break the connection. When she looks back, Ben is gone.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Tython most recently appeared in "The Mandalorian," though it has a longer history in Legends that I will be cherry picking in future chapters. :-)</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Phrenbi">Phrenbi</a>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Are we not friends anymore?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey is trying to coax an old Eksoan generator they found stashed in the <em>Falcon</em> back to life. On her knees in the grass, she’s the same height as Maz Kanata. “Of course we are,” she says with a frown, cleaning the grease from her hands with her wraps. “Why would you even ask that?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Since I landed last night,” Maz replies, ticking off the names on her three fingers, “I’ve spoken to Leia, your stormtrooper friend, and that nice girl Rose. They all told me you desperately need to talk to me. But somehow, I never heard from you. I had to come looking for you. Now why is that, if we’re friends?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was waiting for the crowds to die down?” Rey jokes, but she can see that Maz isn’t buying it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come to you because I wasn’t sure what to say.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s a tool box next to the battered machine and Maz sits on it. “They all seem to think you need help translating some Jedi books.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, that’s what they think.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You don’t agree?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey shrugs. “I doubt it’s as simple as reading books or fixing a lightsaber or learning to meditate. Even if I could snap my fingers right now and make myself the magical Jedi they all seem to want, it wouldn’t do a thing to end the war.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If she expects to be chided, she’s disappointed. Maz smiles warmly at her. “Wise for one so young. There were thousands of Jedi during the Clone Wars. Some felt they only made things worse. The peacekeepers turned into warriors, leading armies into battle across the galaxy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey considers this for a moment. Then the question she really wants answered comes to her. “You feel the Force. Why did you never become a Jedi?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The smaller female chuckles. “I am attuned to the Force but I do not wield it. And I am far too stubborn to ever follow anyone else’s rules.” She must see that Rey isn’t satisfied with the flippant answer. She continues more seriously, “The Jedi are but one part of a long tradition of worshipping the Force. There are many others that have existed across time. The Sith, the Ordu Aspectu, the Church of the Force, the Guardians of the Whills…I could go on for hours. Each sect had its own particular beliefs about the true objective of the Force and how best to bring that to pass.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She spreads her arms wide, indicating the meadow around them, the foothills and peaks in the distance. “This planet, Tython, is a very important part of Jedi history. Did you read anything about it in your books? Some say it was the site of the first Jedi temple. Thousands of years ago, the disciples of the ancient Je’daii who leaned too much toward the Dark Side were exiled to Tython’s moon, Bogan. Those who relied too much on the Light were sent to its sister moon, Ashla. There are still species today that believe in two sides of the Force, the Ashla and the Bogan.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey crosses her legs and begins to pull at clumps of tiny meadow flowers in frustration. “That’s very interesting but I’m not sure—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not sure why I’m telling you this? You asked me why I never became a Jedi. To be honest, I’m not certain I would have qualified under their recruiting criteria. But even if I had, I don’t think I would have been interested. I don’t agree with some of their teachings, you see. Or their practices.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Like what?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t agree that the Force can be split into entirely good and entirely evil motivations. In my experience, existence is far more complex than that. And since few species can be neatly divided into ‘good’ and ‘evil’ specimens, demanding that they reject fundamental parts of their own natures is a recipe for disaster. In my opinion.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But when we first met, you told me to let the Light guide me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“As it should, of course. We must always strive to be just and compassionate and loving. But if we try to deny the shadows within, child, if we pretend they are not there, not as much a part of us as all the rest, that is when we fall.” Maz shakes her head. “For me, the Jedi became too dogmatic. Taking young ones from their parents, telling them that love was a weakness. Teaching them that training was the most important thing they could do, as if the Force is some sort of sport or game you can master if only you practice enough. All that indoctrination wasn’t for me. And it appears you are thinking the same thing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The younger woman tosses aside a handful of petals in frustration. “You know what’s funny? Luke Skywalker himself told me the Jedi were a disaster. That their true legacy was failure. ‘Hypocrisy and hubris’ he said. He wanted the order to end with him.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maz inclines her head in understanding. “But even knowing all of this, you still feel pressure to take up the legacy. Not because you want to. Because you think you should.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How can I not? They’re all depending on me. And it’s a tradition that’s lasted thousands of years. All the temples and lightsabers, the sacred texts, the…Bashla story you were just telling.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ashla,” Maz corrects gently. “And Bogan. Tradition can be important when it serves a function for good. Keeping a tradition alive that has lost all its meaning is…empty, at best. Destructive, at worst. Every being must find their own way through this life. The most powerful thing you can do is to find your own path, not the path you feel obligated to take for someone else’s sake.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She shifts off the toolbox and sits next to Rey, patting her knee. The silver bracelets on her wrist jingle agreeably and wink in the sunlight. “Perhaps the Jedi were an important tool for the Force to work its will at one time. And perhaps that time is now over. If the future is ever to be born, the past must die.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey looks at her sharply. A memory echoes through her mind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Let the past die.</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>Kill it, if you have to.</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>That’s the only way to become who you’re meant to be.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maz is still talking. “—X-wings are supposed to arrive soon, so my crew and I are staying on for a bit. We’ll all travel together to the next base for safety. First Order patrols are increasing across the Core. They seem to be looking for something. No one is quite sure what.” Rey has a sneaking suspicion she knows. “I’d be interested to take a look at your moldy old books, if you’re still willing to lend them to me. I promise I’ll give them back before we part company.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course. They’re in the <em>Falcon</em>. I can get them for you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Let’s go together,” Maz proposes. “I’ve missed my boyfriend.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She’s planning to spend the afternoon helping Chewie test some repairs they’ve made to the sensor array but instead General Organa summons her to a conference.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rey, good, you’ll want to know about this,” Leia says as she joins the others. “Alright, Poe, go ahead.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dameron is leading the briefing. “We’ve already got sentries posted on the camp but since it looks like Black Squadron won’t be getting here for another rotation, we’ve decided to go ahead and set up a perimeter patrol schedule. We don’t want people getting bored sitting around in a field all day, pretty as it may be.” He smirks at the group, circled around an empty fuel drum. On top of the drum projects a small holo map of the local topography.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So Rey, I already went over how we scanned the area to set up routes and we got a lot of weird interference in this quadrant—” he points to the corner of the map farthest from her, “—and then Maz said…” Poe sweeps his hand dramatically to indicate he’s handing the narrative off from this point.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I said I was not surprised to hear that. There is an ancient Jedi monument not far from here, maybe ten kilometers away. I believe it is what they called a ‘seeing stone.’”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why would a monument interfere with our sensors?” Connix asks in confusion.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Monument is perhaps not the most precise word. It’s not a simple statue. It’s a remnant of one of the very earliest Jedi temples. Terribly old and important, but mostly broken rocks now.” She winks at Rey conspiratorially. “The Jedi usually built their temples on nexus points in the Force. Places where the membrane is very thin, you understand.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There is perplexed silence around the drum. “The membrane?” Finn repeats. “What does that mean?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maz weighs how best to answer. “There are places where the barrier between the Living Force and the Cosmic Force is not so strong. The Jedi called such places ‘nexus points’ or ‘vergences.’ You may not have heard those words before but you’ve probably heard of the places you can find them: Coruscant, Lothal, Ahch-To—” she gives Rey a significant look, “—Ilum. For thousands of years, Ilum provided the Jedi with the kyber crystals they needed to power their lightsabers, until the Empire gutted the planet and the First Order turned it into their Starkiller Base. You all know what happened to that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Well, there’s one answer she’s been searching for. The source of all kyber crystals is destroyed. She helped blow it up. So much for repairing the lightsaber. Maybe it’s a sign.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What happens at a seeing stone?” she asks quietly. All eyes turn toward her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t really know. I’ve heard stories about Jedi seeking them out in search of visions. Perhaps there’s something in the books,” Maz offers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nothing I’ve noticed.” Everyone is still watching her. She wants them to stop. “I’ll take that patrol route.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh?” Poe cuts in. “No, Rey, you’re misunderstanding. We were never intending anyone to go that far out. Didn’t you hear Maz? It’s ten kilometers from here, in that northern stretch of hills. Could be a tough climb to even reach it. We called you in because the general thought you’d want to know it was there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I do. And I want to see it, in person. General Organa, request permission to hike over and survey the area around the seeing stone?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Leia looks conflicted, doesn’t answer right away. Rey recalls their conversation, just days ago. She has already disobeyed the directive not to consort with the enemy. “Frankly, I’m not sure what’s to be gained by it. What do you hope to learn there?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If Maz is correct that the stone offers visions, then the Force might give me guidance about the path I’m supposed to be on. It’s more than I’ll learn sitting here trying to parse out what the books mean,” she can’t resist adding.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alright, permission granted,” Leia concedes reluctantly. “But you should leave right away. We expect the squadron to make planetfall sometime in the next twenty to thirty hours. I want you back by then, understood?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She doesn’t need any sort of map or compass to find her way. Once she sets out from the bivouac, instinct draws her steadily forward. Still, the chrono Leia insists she take tells her that more than four standard hours have passed by the time she reaches the ruins. They stand on a flat-topped hill, a circle of massive, rough-hewn monoliths tented over a small half-moon of rock. There’s a hint of a breeze blowing across the summit, pleasant after the steep climb.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The dome itself is plain, save for a simple band of symbols carved around its top. Rey has no idea what they mean. Maybe they’re instructions for how to use the stone properly, or a warning she can’t heed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The sensation of the Force pressing in on her has been overwhelming all the way up the slope. But here in the circle the atmosphere is curiously lighter. She isn’t sure what to do. Is there a specific spot she’s supposed to touch? Does this ritual require a lightsaber? Must she move something with the Force to trigger a vision?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>All at once, it comes to her. <em>Kriffing meditation.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>She scampers up the stone and sits cross-legged. Closing her eyes and taking a series of steadying breaths, Rey opens herself more fully to the currents of the universe.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Be with me</em>, she silently begs, without really knowing why.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world around her explodes in violence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>Something has gone terribly wrong. This is the place he is supposed to be safe but they have hurt him. </em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p><strong> <em>Or rather, they </em> </strong> <strong>want</strong> <strong> <em> to hurt him.</em> </strong></p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>That is something that can never be allowed to happen.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>Slices of white heat fracture the black air and then everything—everything—is burning.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>He is here, looking terrified and amazed and revolted, simultaneously the man she knows and a boy she only recognizes.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>No.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>NO!</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>I never…I didn’t want this.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>Is she the one that says it? Or is it the man-boy, at once so familiar and alien?</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>The heat is intense. Lightning splits the sky. A noxious smell blankets everything, coppery sweet: bodies are aflame.</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>STOP! he screams. How are you doing this?! STOP!</em> </strong>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>She hits the ground hard, missing the weeds at the base of the stone that might have softened her landing. A metallic tang of blood coats the inside of her mouth, from biting her tongue on impact. Her fingertips feel scraped raw and over-sensitive. For a moment, she’s winded, reality spinning around her. And then—</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rey?!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben drops down on his knees, brushing the hair back from her face with shaking fingers, checking her for injuries. “Are you hurt? Talk to me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s happening?” she croaks. Her own voice sounds foreign. “How are you here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I could ask you the same question.” He’s looking all around the hilltop and she knows—she <em>knows</em>—he can see her surroundings.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She tries to sit up but the world tilts on its axis. He pushes down on her shoulders. “Stay still,” he orders.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I…where are you?” Greyish dust streaks the dark fabric of his pants where he’s crouching beside her. A bead of sweat runs down his face; the black tunic is much too heavy for this weather. He’s squinting in the strong daylight. In this moment, incredibly, Ben is on Tython.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was on the <em>Steadfast</em>. Then I was in a…a waking dream. Now I’m here, wherever the hell this is. What did you do, Rey?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Help me up?” she pleads and as agitated as he is, he does as she asks. Pulling her into a sitting position brings their faces together. She feels hollow, as if the vision sapped every last joule of energy from her body. Ben adjusts his hold on her, carefully sliding a hand up the base of her neck. She can go slack in his grip; he won’t let her fall.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I need you to explain to me what is happening right now,” he says again, but his voice is milder. “Where am I and how did you bring me here? What did we just experience?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My dream,” she whispers. “The dream I’ve been having for months.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She feels his fingers press tighter. “How is that possible?” he demands. “How can you be dreaming about something that happened to me before we ever met?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know. But it was different this time. Usually you’re there but you’re younger. How you must have been that night. This time, it was the real you, wasn’t it? You were in the dream with me. I heard you calling my name.” She shivers in the late afternoon heat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben lifts one of her hands, limp in her lap. She hisses in pain when he runs his thumb over each of her fingertips. “I must have scraped them while I was falling,” she guesses. More than anything, she wants to lay her head in the curve of his shoulder and fall deeply asleep. Surely he won’t object.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No,” he rasps. “That’s not what happened. There was…lightning. You shot Force lightning from your hands, I saw it. Rey,” his voice is horrified disbelief, “it was you. You set Skywalker’s temple on fire.”</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tython/Legends">Tython (Legends)</a>
</p>
<p>I am using the seeing stone differently than it was employed in "The Mandalorian." I have spoken.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“In the dream, you mean,” Rey corrects unsteadily.</p><p> </p><p>Ben seems uncertain. “It didn’t feel like any dream I can remember having. It was like…living it again.”</p><p> </p><p>He’s too close. Adrenaline pulls her out of her torpor and she pushes back against his chest, careful to use only the palms of her hands. But the seeing stone blocks her escape.</p><p> </p><p>“Is this some kind of trick?” she demands. “Why are you doing this?”</p><p> </p><p>“Why am <em>I</em> doing this?” He’s incredulous. “You just <em>summoned</em> me from a Star Destroyer in the Corusca sector. I had nothing to do with this.”</p><p> </p><p>Her legs are weak but she struggles to stand and put more distance between them. Her hands hurt so much she can’t close them. “It must be you,” she insists. “All of this started happening after Crait. The nightmare I can’t shake, the headaches, feeling like nothing is right—”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve always felt like nothing was right. You can’t blame me for that,” he protests.</p><p> </p><p>“And just how do you think you know that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Because I know you,” he says, too quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“No, you don’t,” she denies. Why is she so afraid?</p><p> </p><p>He gets up off the stony ground, brushing dust too harshly from his clothes. “Yes, I do. You just wish I didn’t. Or that someone did who wasn’t me.”</p><p> </p><p>They glare at each other over the dome for a few seconds, until Ben shifts his focus to it. It looks harmless enough. “What is this? Where are we?” When she doesn’t answer, he points out, “You might as well tell me. I’m either trapped here with you already, or I’ll figure it out as soon as I get back and have an entire galactic archive at my disposal. Terrestrial planet, temperate climate. Mountainous regions with scrublands interspersed. Once I cross-reference for Jedi ruins ancient enough to be inscribed in proto-Aurebesh that should narrow it down to…a half-dozen sites? Fewer? Why don’t you save us both the trouble?”</p><p> </p><p>“You really are an insufferable know-it-all.”</p><p> </p><p>His lips quirk in the direction of a smile. “I’ve been called worse. By you, in fact.”</p><p> </p><p>She grimaces, first in irritation but then in discomfort as she forgets and tries to clench her hands into fists. Ben strides away from the seeing stone, reaching for her discarded pack and asking, “You have med supplies with you?” He recovers a single, crumpled bacta pad from a pocket of the bag. “Excellent preparation,” he mocks.</p><p> </p><p>Rey backs away as he approaches but he isn’t having it. “Let me. You’re in pain.” He tears open the creased packaging and carefully wipes the pad over each of her scalded fingertips in turn.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought pain was something Darksiders enjoyed,” she taunts.</p><p> </p><p>“Last time I checked, you weren’t a Darksider,” he retorts. But he gives her a pointed look, as if he’s asking whether the statement is still true. She ignores him.</p><p> </p><p>“This pad is fairly dried out but it should work.” His grip is just firm enough to discourage her from pulling away. He’s still focusing on his task when he asks, “Are we going to talk about what just happened? Or are we still pretending to forget everything?”</p><p> </p><p>She does pull free then, but slowly. “What is there to talk about?” At his look of exasperation, she offers, “You said you’ve never lied to me. You were quite proud of it, in fact. So promise me something right now. Promise me that if I tell you what you want to know, you won’t use it to hunt the Resistance. If you can do that, and mean it, I’ll talk to you.”</p><p> </p><p>He looks steadily into her face. “I promise,” he says. The bond sparks between them.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m on Tython,” she sighs. “At the ruins of an early Jedi temple. I was told about this place. About that seeing stone. I was told that if I came here, it might offer me a vision. Instead…I got you.”</p><p> </p><p>He examines the dome. “But it gave you the vision first. It showed you that night at Skywalker’s temple. You said you’ve seen it before.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” she acknowledges reluctantly. “I’ve been having the same dream since…for a while.”</p><p> </p><p>“Since the day you came to me on the <em>Supremacy</em>,” he clarifies. “The day we fought side-by-side. The day I begged you to join me but you didn’t.” He looms closer as he speaks, the sun suddenly disappearing in the cool shadow his body casts over her.</p><p> </p><p>“The day I begged you to come back to the Light but you didn’t.” Rey steps away. Sunshine floods over her but it’s too hot, too bright. She misses the shelter of the shadow.</p><p> </p><p>Brushing past him, she crosses the circle to her pack and pulls out a canister of water. The pain is subsiding. “Shouldn’t this have stopped, this connection between us? Now that Snoke is dead, I mean. He said he was the one that ‘bridged our minds.’” The claim has bothered her more than she cares to admit.</p><p> </p><p>“Snoke was a liar,” Ben spits. “I didn’t believe him then and I certainly don’t believe him now. If anything, it seems we’ve been linked longer than either of us ever realized.”</p><p> </p><p>That startles her. “What does that mean?”</p><p> </p><p>He walks to the edge of the clearing, to the opening between two of the canted monoliths. Closing his eyes, he extends an arm toward the horizon. But his movement is stopped by an invisible barrier she can’t detect.</p><p> </p><p>With a grunt of annoyance, he turns back. “I told you what happened that night. I woke up and Skywalker was standing over my bed with his lightsaber out. I acted in self-defense, as you would have in my place. I pulled the roof of the hut in as a distraction and ran for my life. When I got outside, everything was quiet. I remember the lights flickering inside the sanctuary on the hill. Then the sky turned red, filled with lightning and the entire compound exploded in front of my eyes. I never understood what happened. I always assumed that somehow, I had done it without meaning to.”</p><p> </p><p>The hinge on the canister lid cuts into the flesh of her thumb. She’s holding the bottle too tightly. “And my nightmare changed your opinion about that? You think I somehow traveled back in time and blew it up?”</p><p> </p><p>He’s shaking his head before she finishes. “You just won’t see it, will you? It’s not only your nightmare. It’s my nightmare and my memory, too. Your mind and mine are tangled together. They may have been for quite some time. That day on Takodana, there was a…” he struggles to find the word he wants, “a resonance. A familiarity. You were not totally unknown to me. Don’t worry, I won’t ask if you felt the same.”</p><p> </p><p>She wants to sit down but she’s not going near the stone again. “Tell me your theory, then. You’re obviously bursting to share it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe on some unconscious level, you and I have been linked since before we met. In your vision, the one that brought me here, I wasn’t seeing the events of that night as I did then. I wasn’t standing in the place I was that night. I was on the other side of the grounds. And when I saw you there, you were much younger than you are now, still a child. You wielded the lightning that destroyed the building. I watched it happen. I tried to get you to stop,” he finishes faintly.</p><p> </p><p>“How noble of you. And awfully convenient,” she sneers. “I have a nightmare and you’re able to use it to your benefit. Is this part of your plan to turn me? To convince me that I’ve actually been a murderer since long before we met? That it’s <em>my</em> fault you fell? Honestly, you will stop at nothing.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re conflating a nightmare with a vision gifted to you by the Force. I didn’t reach out to you a few days ago, Rey. I didn’t come here desperate for answers. I didn’t pull you across the galaxy. And I haven’t spent the last few months having recurring dreams about you.” His tone is frigid. “Once again, you step right up to the edge of what you really want but you’re not brave enough to see it through.”</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know it was possible to feel antipathy this intense. “Your arrogance is astonishing. You’ve destroyed everyone who ever cared about you. As miserable as my life has been, it’s never been worse than since I met you. And somehow you twist that in your lonely mind into a fairy tale about me secretly pining for you. Longing to join you in murdering and pillaging the galaxy until it bends to your will. I would rather die.”</p><p> </p><p>“Interesting choice of words, since I appear to be the only one here with a weapon,” Ben snarls. His face has gone stark white while she rages at him. She’s reminded of his mother.</p><p> </p><p>“Is this what it would have been like, had I stayed? You threatening to kill me anytime I didn’t do or say exactly what you wanted?”</p><p> </p><p>The wrath boiling through him is so visceral that she sways a little when it just…vanishes. He turns his back on her. Is it shame he is feeling or resignation? “No,” he mutters. “If you had stayed, everything would have been different. For both of us.” He doesn’t say more and it’s all she can do not to beg him to explain what he means.</p><p> </p><p>Unless she intends to spend the night on this exposed hilltop, she needs to start hiking back to camp. She replaces the water canister and fishes the chrono out of the pack to estimate the hours left until sundown. But the chrono has gone dark. “Kriff.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” he asks sharply.</p><p> </p><p>“Chrono’s stopped,” she says in a clipped tone.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me see.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you not believe me? I told you, it stopped working.”</p><p> </p><p>“I believe you. I want to check something.” He walks to the edge of the circle, to the spot where he attempted to pass his arm between the monoliths. He tries again, this time with the chrono in his fist. The invisible wall does not yield. “Come here,” he barks. Rey crosses her arms and gives him a defiant look. “For the love of—will you please come here for one kriffing minute?”</p><p> </p><p>When she approaches, he slaps the chrono into her palm. “Listen carefully. Don’t leave the circle. Just reach out beyond the stones with this in your hand.” As she steps past him, he grabs onto her elbow in alarm. “You have to stay inside the clearing.”</p><p> </p><p>“I heard you the first time.” When she reaches out, her arm doesn’t meet any opposition. The world feels no different beyond the point that Ben cannot seem to go. But the face of the chrono lights up and resumes a steady count. “What the—?”</p><p> </p><p>“I was right. The chrono stopped as soon as you stepped inside the circle. Or possibly when you activated the stone. Either way, time moves differently depending on where you are.”</p><p> </p><p>“Moves differently? How can that be?”</p><p> </p><p>“No idea. But it is. Which is probably why I can’t leave. I’m not supposed to be here. If I ever make it back to the <em>Steadfast</em>, no time may have passed there at all.” He’s remarkably blasé about such an extraordinary pronouncement.</p><p> </p><p>“And how do you suggest we return you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m guessing you leaving the circle will reset everything.”</p><p> </p><p>“And if it doesn’t?”</p><p> </p><p>He’s almost amused. “Then you get what you always wanted. Me in front of a Resistance firing squad.”</p><p> </p><p>She bites the inside of her lip. “I never wanted that.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben walks over and picks her pack up off the ground. Stepping behind her, he slides the straps over her shoulders. They are at the very edge of the clearing. His breath is heavy on her earlobe as he warns, “I keep telling you, Rey. You can lie to everyone else, including yourself, but not to me. Never to me.”</p><p> </p><p>The warm pressure of his palm spreads across her lower back as he gently nudges her past the barrier. But when she looks back, there is no one there at all.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>All the way back to camp, Rey quarrels with herself. She has to tell the general what has happened, warn her that the First Order knows their location. The return hike will take less time than the trip out, being mostly downhill, but she could still reach the <em>Falcon</em> and find it already occupied by stormtroopers. She’s taken a catastrophic risk and put lives in danger.</p><p> </p><p>And yet…Ben doesn’t lie. He has a brutal temper, yes, is impetuous and reckless when he’s angry. But he promised her he wouldn’t abuse her trust and against all reason, she believes he will honor that promise. The bond doesn’t prevent them from trying to deceive each other, but it does make it nearly impossible for them to succeed.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You can lie to everyone else, including yourself, but not to me. Never to me.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t want to tell Leia about the encounter with Ben. Doesn’t want to explain how—or why—the Force brought them together again. She knows rehashing that night at the temple will only bring the woman more pain. And she can’t imagine having to look Ben’s mother in the face and say, “Our minds are tangled together.” She’ll die of mortification.</p><p> </p><p>There’s another issue worth considering. The Resistance may not want her around anymore if word gets out that she’s secretly consorting with Kylo Ren. She’s already a disappointment to them. The lightsaber remains useless and she’s gotten nowhere with the kriffing books. The miracle Jedi who saved them on Crait has done nothing for them since. After an initial spurt of panic, though—what will she do? where will she go?—Rey isn’t sure how much the threat of exile truly bothers her. She’s been alone before. She knows how to take care of herself.</p><p> </p><p>As she comes over the last rise before the meadow, where the bivouac shelters between the two grey cargo freighters, she realizes she’s holding her breath. It’s ridiculous. She would have heard any TIE fighters approaching, would have felt the fear run through the camp if it came under attack. But when she finally sees the makeshift shelters in the dusk light, small camp fires dotting the scene, something eases inside her. As incensed as he was, as acutely as she tried to wound him, Ben kept his word.</p><p> </p><p>Rey asks to speak to the general, to offer her mission report, and she’s surprised to be directed to the <em>Falcon</em>. She finds Leia and Maz at the dejarik table, its surface covered with the dusty volumes she is starting to loathe. They’re expecting her. “Have a seat, child. There are important matters to discuss,” Maz says, motioning to the bench beside her. Leia sits silently on the opposite corner.</p><p> </p><p>“You found the ruins,” Maz begins without preamble. “You found the seeing stone and something powerful happened. Leia and I both felt it ring through the Force. She decided to share with me your relationship with her son.” Rey glances at Leia, startled at the betrayal, but the general’s face is impassive, expressionless. She wonders briefly if Maz knew Ben…before.</p><p> </p><p>“Was it him?” Leia asks quietly. “Did the two of you speak again?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Rey replies evenly. She refuses to feel ashamed, like a disobedient child caught in the act. “It wasn’t something I sought out but it happened. And you should know that it wasn’t the first time since you and I spoke, General. Last night, after we landed, I woke up and he was there. We’d both been asleep. It wasn’t intentional. We spoke for no more than a moment before he disappeared.”</p><p> </p><p>Maz and Leia exchange sideways looks. Then the smaller woman leans toward Rey. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell us what you talk about in these private moments?”</p><p> </p><p>Her word choice makes the whole thing sound illicit and Rey bristles. “We never speak about anything connected to the war, if that’s what you want to know. He doesn’t ask about our numbers or try to convince me that the Resistance should surrender or anything like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“That just makes me more curious, if I’m being honest,” Leia says. “Wouldn’t that be the sort of thing you’d expect the Supreme Leader of the First Order to discuss with the last Jedi, given the chance?”</p><p> </p><p>“Neither of us think of it that way,” Rey blurts. “I’m not a Jedi. And he wasn’t Supreme Leader when we…” She trails off, uncertain how to finish.</p><p> </p><p>“What do Rey and Ben talk about then?” Maz probes gently.</p><p> </p><p><em>Loneliness</em>, she wants to say. <em>Being cast off by people we loved. </em>But she can’t bring herself to injure Leia like that. “Mostly the bond. How it started and when. Why.”</p><p> </p><p>“Have you come to any conclusions?”</p><p> </p><p>“Snoke claimed he was responsible for it. To use me, to find Luke. To test Ben. Neither of us believe that, though.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why not?” Leia questions.</p><p> </p><p>“Snoke is dead but the bond is still there. And it’s possible that we were…linked before we met. It’s hard to explain.”</p><p> </p><p>“Can you try?” Leia persists. “It could be important, Rey.”</p><p> </p><p>The younger woman hesitates, unsure how much to reveal. “I have memories that aren’t mine. Things that happened to him when I was only a child. And he says that when we met, he…recognized me. That I was familiar to him. It can be confusing, hard to separate out my own memories from my ability to look into his mind and see his memories. If that makes any sense.”</p><p> </p><p>The general clasps her hands, stares down at the enormous blue-stoned wedding ring forever on her finger. “Rey, I need to ask you this. Is it possible that my son is manipulating you? Is he using this situation to his advantage by trying to gain your trust, your sympathy? You told me on Lodanna that he was lonely. Could he be using this telepathic connection to sense your feelings, then turning them against you?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey is a terrible hypocrite. Hours ago, she herself accused him of trying to trick her into giving in to the Dark Side. But hearing his mother make the same argument, she feels a burst of righteous indignation on his behalf. “Ben is many things. He’s haunted by betrayals and abuses he can’t get past, and it fills him with rage. And when he’s angry, he’s hotheaded and destructive. But he’s not a manipulator. Was he like that as a child?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Leia admits. “But that was a long time ago.”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s never lied to me. He’s said things that hurt me, made me furious at him. But he’s never lied. In fact, on Ahch-To it was Luke who lied to me about what happened at the school. Then Ben told me the same story from his perspective, and when I confronted Luke about it, Luke admitted he was the one not being honest.” She realizes she’s defending Ben a bit too loudly, too enthusiastically, and stops in confusion. “Besides, I don’t think he can lie to me,” she finishes lamely.</p><p> </p><p>“Why do you say that?” Maz asks with interest.</p><p> </p><p>Rey sighs. “I can always tell whenever anyone is trying to mislead me. There’s a…dissonance. A friction between what they’re saying and what they’re thinking. It’s grating to listen to. Like lies are broadcast on a different frequency than truth—one with static. I’m not sure how to say it more clearly. I imagine it would be a thousand times worse with Ben, because I’m so much more attuned to him than anybody else.”</p><p> </p><p>“You imagine?”</p><p> </p><p>“As I said, he’s never lied to me.”</p><p> </p><p>Maz looks pointedly at Leia, who gives her a curt nod. “Rey, I found something in this text. Something that might explain what’s happening. It isn’t much to go on, I’m afraid. There’s a reference in one of these quatrains, a kind of prophetic poem. I think the runes translate to something like ‘dyad.’ It mentions ‘two who are one,’ who have the power to connect across time and space. These books are extremely old, thousands of years. And they include copies of texts that are even older, perhaps ten or twenty thousand years. The writing is not something I can easily read. You see here—” she points to a line of symbols that look like gibberish to Rey, “—I believe that is the archaic character for ‘soul.’ If I’m correct, this passage would mean something like, ‘one soul in two bodies.’ But it’s impossible to know for sure. Perhaps I can make a copy of this and find a scholar of ancient linguistics somewhere.”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no time for that now,” Leia protests. “First priority is getting off Tython.” Her tone suggests it’s a matter of some urgency.</p><p> </p><p>“Has something happened? I didn’t see Black Squadron back.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maz thinks being on Tython may be boosting the signal, as it were. The Force is so concentrated here it’s facilitating stronger and more frequent meetings between the two of you.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey is still struggling to absorb what Maz read from the text. <em>Dyad</em>. Two that are one. She leaves the table and begins to walk aimlessly around the compartment.</p><p> </p><p>“You haven’t told us what happened at the seeing stone,” Maz points out.</p><p> </p><p>“I had a vision. When I came out of it, he was there. We talked for a while, then I left.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I pulled him to me.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>He healed my hurts.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>We stopped time.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says abruptly. “I think I need some air. Can we finish later?” And she flees the ship before either woman can even answer.</p><p> </p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>She’s missed evening meal, but Rose and Connix find her sitting against the <em>Falcon’s</em> landing gear and offer her ration packs and native fruit that one of the patrols discovered. They invite her to come back to their fire—Poe and Finn are attempting some sort of musical entertainment tonight—but she begs off with an excuse about the long hike and exhaustion. They don’t look like they entirely believe her but they leave without argument. Ben is supposed to be the liar but half-truths and omissions come so easily to her.</p><p> </p><p>Cycles are longer on Tython than she’s used to but truly, this day has felt endless. Her brain buzzes with everything that’s happened. Maz thinks the Jedi have run their course and Rey should choose her own path. Ben thinks they’ve been connected since Rey was a child, that she might have been there the night everything went so horribly wrong in his life. Leia thinks Ben is using Rey, manipulating her into believing he cares.</p><p> </p><p>She’s less clear what she thinks about the whole, stupid mess.</p><p> </p><p>As night draws fully in, her attention fixates on the closest fire. The bright white intensity of it reminds her of Jakku and its pitiless sun. She pictures the endless expanses of sand, flowing toward the horizon in every direction. The desiccated air and the—</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>—<em>sickly ochre sky filling her vision while the ship streaks away.</em></strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>They are leaving her. Abandoning her in hell. No goodbyes, only the clink of a few coins and she is forgotten, cast aside like so much garbage.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>A large hand wraps around her arm, keeping her from running. But where would she run? There is nowhere to go, there is nothing. She is nothing without them.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Someone is screaming, pleading. Come back, come back. But they can’t hear. They don’t care.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Rage like she has never felt fills her body. Her hand is in the sky and there is an eruption of hurt and hatred and hopelessness.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Slices of white heat fracture the yellow air and then everything—everything—is burning.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Someone is screaming. Someone else is saying her name.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>He pulls hard on her arm, makes her face him. He isn’t towering above her. His eyes are right where she expects to find them. </em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>She’s not a child; she’s herself. The one screaming is her.</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>“Rey! Rey! You gotta wake up!”</p><p> </p><p>She shrieks, sobs. Her fingers sting and just as she comes back into reality, arcs of blue lance from her into Finn while he tries to rouse her. He’s knocked backward by the surge, sliding a couple of meters into the feet of a curious crowd milling just beyond the <em>Falcon</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry! <em>Gods</em>, I’m so sorry,” she yelps, scrambling up to chase after him. The crowd lurches back as she approaches, a reflexive response but it slams her to a stop. She looks down at Finn, her first friend, doubled over on the ground, disbelief and pain sharp on his face. Poe jumps between them, bending down to shield the other man. “What did you do to him?” he demands indignantly.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Rey repeats dully, shaking her head, backing away. “I didn’t mean to.”</p><p> </p><p>Then she sprints for the ramp, sealing herself inside the empty freighter.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t belong here.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Before dawn, Rey slips out of the freighter, half-expecting to find guards posted. But no one is around the <em>Falcon</em> and she’s able to bypass the camp sentries without difficulty. She’s traveling light, having packed only basic provisions and the shattered lightsaber into her knapsack. For a beat, her hand had drifted toward the book containing the prophesy, but she somehow sensed it had yielded the only revelation she could ever hope to get from it, so she left it on the dejarik table.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Instead of heading north toward the seeing stone, she strikes out east. The topographical holo showed a more heavily forested area in this direction, with ground water farther out. She’s brought a sizeable canteen but it won’t last forever.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She won’t have much of a head start but she’s counting on the Resistance delaying at least a few hours before they start searching for her. With the sensors on the <em>Falcon</em> still out of commission, they will most likely wait for the X-wings to arrive and send one or two of them on reconnaissance. She has to move fast and put as much distance between herself and the camp as she can.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The land begins a low but steady climb. She remembers that the woods are sitting on top of an escarpment. Using her staff as a climbing pole makes the ascent easier. After the sun rises, she pushes harder, knowing she’s more exposed in the daylight. The trees provide some cover but she’s not as concealed as she would like.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s no time to stop and do the thing properly. She’ll just have to make this work. Calibrating her attention to the rhythm of her steps, she works to let go of other thoughts. Filling her memory with an image of Ben’s face, she reaches out through the Force.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Help me. I need you.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The sounds of the forest drop away and his voice brushes across her mind like windsong.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Where are you? What’s wrong?</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p><em>You already know, </em>she thinks impatiently. <em>You were there, in my dream. You saw.</em></p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>She feels something ricochet along the connection. Reluctance, uncertainty. <em>I was there but I’m not sure what I saw.</em></p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p><em>It was clear enough, wasn’t it? </em>she demands. <em>Do you need me to spell it out? The Dark Side is in my nature.</em></p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>Rey— </em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p><em>I need you to do something for me, </em>she interrupts. There’s no time for debating or for indulging the emotions poised to choke her since last night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Tell me.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>You keep saying I don’t have the courage to ask for what I want. Well, I’m asking. Come to Tython. Come for me.</em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>The first moon rises. From high on the ridge, Rey spots the four, crimson exhaust ports typical of a starfighter speeding away from her on the northern horizon. The general must have guessed she was returning to the seeing stone. There’s too much interference, too much energy radiating across this world, to make it easy for them to locate a solitary lifeform within a fifty-kilometer radius.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She should be spent, trekking the entire day in summer heat. But the Force permeates all, replenishing her with each step. She feels nearly as rested as she did leaving the bivouac. Ironically, the absence of fatigue only frees her mind for worrying.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What she’s asked him to do is perilous. The Resistance has the <em>Falcon,</em> and now Black Squadron is back. Maz’s freighter is heavily armed. If they detect him on scanners back at the camp before he’s able to reach her, his life will be in danger. From what she’s heard, Ben is as talented a pilot as his legendary father, but even he can’t outfly a dozen enemy ships that all want him dead. Still, when she asked him to take the risk he didn’t hesitate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It will be dawn again before he makes planetfall and that’s if he pushes his ship—and himself—to the limit. Rey passes time trying to calculate how long the trip should take from the Corusca sector. The <em>Falcon</em> is one of the fastest ships in the galaxy and she doubts it could make that run in thirty standard hours. Maybe Ben didn’t keep his word, after all. Maybe the <em>Steadfast</em> was already en route to the Deep Core, closing the distance between them even before she called to him. Should that make her angry or grateful? Why can she never have a single, uncomplicated emotion where Ben Solo is concerned?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As a sliver of the second moon clears the tops of the trees, Rey finally reaches the edge of the escarpment. The drop is dizzying. It must be three hundred meters or more to the plain below, though it’s hard to estimate in the dark. She means to work her way south, by keeping the precipice on her left side. Surely the Resistance has called off their search until morning and she can pause for a few minutes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She swallows some mouthfuls of water and slowly chews a ration bar. Even though she would prefer not to think about it, the image of Finn lying on the ground, Poe crouched protectively over him, comes back to her. Rey wonders if they will ever forgive her for what she is about to do. But she’s sure that knowing that answer would not change her mind.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>She doesn’t want to fall asleep, doesn’t want to relive this newest—or oldest—nightmare. A night bird squawks in the trees and in the sound, she hears echoes of her own frantic screaming. It’s too soon; she can’t allow herself to reflect on what it all might mean. Not until Ben is here to gather the shards when she fractures.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the time the sky brightens, she’s traveled far enough south along the cliff’s edge that the height elevation has dropped by at least half. The flatlands below gradually come into sharper focus. This part of Tython is beautiful and lush, with silver ribbons of water curling through the greenspace. The Force is so substantial, so singularly present, that is overlays the landscape, a gauzy effervescence everywhere she looks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The tranquility is broken by the distant whine of a ship tearing across the countryside, a sleek, black blur hurtling toward her, far too low and far too fast.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Get ready</em>, she hears in her head.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Ready for what? Are you actually insane?</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>X-wings incoming from the west. Get ready to board,</em> he orders a second time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He is insane. The strange fighter barely slows. Instead, it arcs toward the north, away from her, so that it can make a wide turn and come barreling south along the rim of the escarpment. The top hatch on the ship retracts as Rey suddenly understands that he has no intention of landing. He means for her to jump.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Some part of her subconscious brain is already calculating the speed and distance and height of the ship and she running for all she’s worth and somersaulting off the edge of the world, buffeted by riptides of energy—</p>
<p> </p>
<p>—before landing gracefully in the small open space just behind his pilot’s seat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Impressive,” he says and though she can only see the back of his head, she feels his relief.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the kriffing hell are you playing at? If I wanted to die, I could’ve jumped off the cliff without involving you at all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hang on,” he orders as the ship dives, plummeting until they are just a meter or two off the ground. There’s nothing to hold except the chair, so Rey braces herself to keep from pitching into the viewport.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What are you doing?” she croaks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I told you, two X-wings approaching from the west. If we can get around the bottom of this landmass before they get over its top, they’ll never spot us.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But they must’ve already picked you up on sensors.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben snorts. “This TIE has the most advanced stealth field generator technology in existence. Unless they spot us through their canopies, they’ll never know we were here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Incredibly, the ship is gaining speed as they race toward the point where the escarpment dips low enough to merge back into the land. The acceleration forces are so strong that Rey slides to her knees on the floor, still clinging to the armrest of the chair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She can just see the display screen past his shoulder, two dots getting nearer and nearer to a red line—two Resistance ships about to burst out over the valley and identify a First Order TIE on Tython. As the dots cross, he yanks hard on the control yoke, slams off a blaring alarm with his fist and reaches back to grab Rey as she careens across the floor. The ship slides sideways through a heart-stopping banked turn and is hidden from view as she collides with Ben’s leg.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re mad,” she gasps.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks down at her, breathing only slightly more heavily than normal. “You’re welcome.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It doesn’t take long to realize that something is amiss. “Why are we still on Tython?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You had another destination in mind?” he asks calmly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She’s sitting on the floor next to him, knees bent, back against the nearest console. There aren’t a lot of other options. “I assumed you’d be eager to get back to…wherever you were.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s been scanning the skyline intently for several minutes, as if he’s looking for something. Reaching over her head to toggle a switch, he declares, “We’ve both been awake too long to keep flying.” The ship decelerates then drops like a stone. It goes dark in the cockpit as he brings the TIE down inside a narrow, rocky outcropping. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What are you doing? They might find us.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“They won’t.” He’s already powering off systems. “As far as they know, you’re on foot. We’re hundreds of kilometers beyond their search area. This ship won’t register on their scanners. And given the profile of this ravine, they’d have to be directly overhead to even see us. We’re secure here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once the ship is locked down, it’s so quiet in the compartment Rey swears she can hear a distant trickle of water inside the fissure. Ben tries to swivel his chair but their knees knock together. For a long moment, he just studies her. She thinks he must be waiting for an explanation. Instead he says, “That’s twice you’ve summoned me from another star system.” He doesn’t need to point out that it will not be so easy to be rid of him this time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Rey whispers. “I’m sure you want to know—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not now,” he interrupts, shaking his head. “There’ll be time for that later. We need to sleep.” He’s grey-faced in the thin light reaching the viewport from the sky above. And now that she’s had a chance to sit for the first time in more than a day, Rey realizes how drained she is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben taps his boot lightly against hers. He means for her to move so he can leave the chair, but the contact is somehow so intimate in the shadowy stillness that she blushes. Kylo Ren, infamous for his ferocity, is also capable of private gentleness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He crosses to the back of the compartment, one expansive stride, and presses a button that reveals a storage bin recessed into the wall. It’s filled by two sleeping rolls.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are those standard issue?” she scoffs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He pulls the rolls out and tosses them to her, one at a time. “No. Neither is a week’s worth of provisions but I brought those, too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t understand.” She supposed he would consider her call a surrender and be eager to rush her back to the security of a First Order brig. Clearly, he has different plans.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“There’s something we need to do.” He begins unfastening the wide belt around his quilted tunic. “Were you going to open those?” he prompts, as Rey realizes with a flash of humiliation that she’s been caught gaping.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben tugs the heavy black garment up and off. He’s wearing a lighter-weight knit shirt underneath and somehow, that simple change transforms his entire appearance. When he crouches down to position the sleeping rolls, she can’t look anywhere else.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We’ll lie low for a few hours, then when the sun sets we’ll start the next leg of the trip. We should arrive before dawn tomorrow.” His boots are the next to go, then he lays his saber on the floor. “I trust you won’t stab me while I’m asleep.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s teasing but the fact remains that he’s lowering his guard, an act of faith. For all he knows, this is an elaborate hoax to lure him away from the fleet and place him at Rey’s mercy. She could be the bait in a Resistance plot to capture him. He doesn’t seem worried, which is a testament either to his egotism or to his belief in her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He stretches out in the roll, turning his back to her. The tunic he folds and uses as a pillow. Rey still hasn’t moved. “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he says softly over his shoulder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not,” she answers. It’s the truth. At least, not in the way he means.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She should wake up shouting. The nightmares have been relentless for months. She and Ben have repeatedly encountered one another in that mirror plane, bound even from opposite sides of the cosmos. But now they sleep side-by-side and the hellish visions don’t come.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Instead, Rey stirs gradually, aware first of the warmth and then the heft of arms and legs that are not her own. The air is close in the compartment; the sun has progressed directly along the length of the ravine while setting. Though they began back-to-back, a meter at least between them, they’ve gravitated together in the waning light. Her fingers are wrapped in the fabric of his jersey. His nose is buried so deeply in her hair that she feels each individual breath.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She waits for the revulsion to start, the horrified urge to run, to crucify herself with shame. It doesn’t come. The Force spools tranquilly around them, ripples on water from the kiss of a breeze. She’s never been this close to him, able to map the lines of his face, the dark stroke of eyelashes against pale cheeks. She has an absurd impulse to trace the bridge of his nose.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maybe she should pull away, to spare them the inevitable awkwardness. But it feels right. She can’t justify it any more than that to herself. She doesn’t want to let go. By tilting the slightest amount, she can rest her lips against the side of his neck, just above the line of his collar. His heart beats, sure and strong, under her skin. The little pant that escapes her is what wakes him up. Neither moves, each silently gauging the other’s reaction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She panics a bit as Ben leans back, but he’s only putting enough space between them that he can angle his face closer to hers. It’s too dim to see his eyes clearly and she’s oddly grateful. His lips are a hair’s breadth away when he stops. He’s just staring at her, still as stone. She realizes he’s waiting. He’s letting her choose. No claiming later it was an accident or the heat of a single moment. The emptiness between them is alive now with chaotic energy but there is nothing uncontrolled about his actions. Everything about this must be intentional, deliberate. Those are the only terms he can accept.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She decides it’s a fair request.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Pulling lightly on the jersey, she guides his mouth the final distance. At first, neither of them closes their eyes. Maybe they don’t trust each other; maybe they don’t want to forget. His hands are unsteady against her spine; she grips the dark fabric more tightly, to cover her own agitation. It’s a slow, tender introduction. She remembers the edge of the escarpment, the terrifying abyss suddenly opening at her feet. But when she jumped, he was there to catch her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the time they break apart, Ben looks as if he wants to devour her whole. She thinks she might want him to. But instead he swallows heavily, regretfully. “We should get moving. Night’s falling.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know,” she whispers with a shy smile, trying to kiss him again. He moves his head, just enough to stop her before she reaches him. “I don’t—do you not want—?” She’s baffled and more than a little hurt. Is this a game, after all? Was Leia right?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He tips her chin up, running his thumb lightly across her lower lip. “Not here. Not like this. There’s something you need to do first, before you decide.”</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>True confession #1: From what I can tell--based on looking at schematics and a handful of "replica" YouTube videos (links below)--the top hatch on a TIE Silencer hinges up. But for our purposes, let's all pretend it retracts, okay? ;-)</p>
<p>  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTvY9Llqtms">Video 1</a></p>
<p>  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkq3lAW875o">Video 2</a></p>
<p> <br/>True confession #2: I know less than nothing about hyperspaces travel times in the SW universe. I found a website that claims to somehow estimate such things and after an absurd amount of time and research, determined that if Ben was in the closest part of the Corusca sector and was traveling at the fastest known speed possible, it should have taken something like three standard days for him to reach Tython. Then I read that "The Mandalorian" just unilaterally relocated the entire planet from the Deep Core to the Outer Rim and so I did what I (almost) always do: I wrote what I wanted.</p>
<p>True confession #3: My sincerest apologies to Physics in general, and Classical Mechanics specifically. :-)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They fly all night, speaking little. Rey decides standing in the back of the compartment is preferable to sitting at Ben’s feet, feeling his gaze on her for hours on end. Through the viewport, she catches glimpses of mountains, forests, wide-open grasslands, and eventually, an ocean. It’s only the second one she’s ever seen.</p><p> </p><p>“This is called the Deep Ocean,” he offers quietly, sensing her interest.</p><p> </p><p>She chuckles. “Terribly imaginative.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how much you know about Tython, about its significance in Jedi history.”</p><p> </p><p>“Practically nothing,” she admits. “I made a very poor Jedi, as you loved to remind me.”</p><p> </p><p>He ignores the barb. “Tython is exceptionally strong in the Force. Something like 35,000 years ago, the ancient Je’daii constructed nine temples here, scattered across the continents. They called their apprentices Journeyers. In order to complete formal training, each one had to undertake a pilgrimage and visit all nine sites.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alone?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think they were allowed to travel in small groups if they wanted. Reaching and studying at all nine locations took years to accomplish.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey gives a little huff of dismay.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” he asks.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s just…the more I learn, the more idiotic I feel for having ever thought I could read a few books, swing a lightsaber and call myself a Jedi.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben considers her words. She can feel him measuring his response. “The Jedi and the Sith were clubs. That’s all. Exclusive clubs designed to make the people they let in feel important. To make the people excluded from them feel smaller, less than. Do you think the fact that I have all this useless trivia drilled into my head has any impact on how or why I chose to wield the Force? Because most of what I was required to study at Skywalker’s temple was just that—dry, dead history. It serves no function, other than to reinforce the idea that you are unimportant as an individual. Your value lies in your role in the collective. You’re a tiny link in the long, great chain of tradition. Don’t think. Do what you’re told. Follow the code. Protect the legacy.” His tone is bitter as he finishes.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you never want to be a Jedi?” she wonders.</p><p> </p><p>He shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate.</p><p> </p><p>“Was there anything you liked about it?”</p><p> </p><p>“The lightsaber,” he concedes. After a beat, he adds, “But I kriffing hate meditation.”</p><p> </p><p>That makes her laugh, the most genuine laugh she’s ever had in his presence. It seems to confuse him. “What’s amusing about that?”</p><p> </p><p>She bites her lip to stifle the giggles. “Nothing. I kriffing hate meditation, too.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>“There it is,” Ben says, nodding toward the horizon.</p><p> </p><p>“There what is?” she asks, cross-legged on the floor. She’s been carefully examining his lightsaber for a quarter-hour. He must know what she’s doing but he’s raised no objections.</p><p> </p><p>“Mahara Kesh, the Temple of Healing.”</p><p> </p><p>She scrambles up and leans around his chair to get a look. The structure sits high above the turbulent waves on a massive stone island. A series of stacked, weathered platforms—blue-green in the morning light—are topped by a square arrangement of pyramids, surrounding a central tower. The tops of the pyramids and the tower all appear to be made from a blue translucent material, glass or crystal, that sparkles in the sun. There are no ships, no transports, no signs of life of any kind.</p><p> </p><p>“The central structure is said to be one of the original Tho Yor,” he tells her. “Each of the temples was supposedly constructed around one. Legend says the Tho Yor were mysterious intergalactic vessels that gathered Force wielders from across the systems and brought them to Tython to form the Je’daii. As much of the structure is inside that stone base as there is above it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is this place abandoned?” They’re circling the temple now, viewing it from all angles. The only movement is from flocks of sea birds nesting on the platforms.</p><p> </p><p>Ben looks up at her. She hasn’t realized how close she is, straining around his seat for a glimpse of the strange marine city. “A very long time ago,” he answers. For an instant, his attention slides down to her lips and she thinks he will kiss her again, but he doesn’t.</p><p> </p><p>“Why did you bring me here?” She doesn’t want to think about how petulant, how disappointed she sounds, even to her own ears.</p><p> </p><p>He turns back to the controls, preparing to land the TIE on the nearest patch of open platform. “I told you. There’s something you need to do.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve repeated that several times but without ever actually explaining. What do I need to do?”</p><p> </p><p>“I would have thought it was obvious. This is Mahara Kesh. You need to learn to heal.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>Their footsteps echo through the dark corridors. This section of the temple is exactly like every other they’ve surveyed. The walls are discolored with damp and mold. The air tastes heavy and brackish. The floors are soft with algae growth and organic waste, a product of the birds and other small sea creatures that have made a home of this deserted isle.</p><p> </p><p>The central rooms, those closest to the stone base, are small. Ben decides they were most likely dormitories for the resident healers and Journeyers. Around that core, they find larger spaces with enormous windows overlooking the sea and empty rows of vats. They guess the vats were an early form of bacta tank.</p><p> </p><p>It’s clear they are not wandering aimlessly. Ben has a destination he intends them to reach. “What’s your plan, then?”</p><p> </p><p>“The meditation chamber is likely at the very top, under that tall tower. We need to find the way up.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey stops so abruptly she slides a little on the slick floor. “Tell me you did not bring me all this way to meditate.”</p><p> </p><p>He shifts the pack on his shoulder, having insisted they bring the bedrolls and provisions from the TIE, which surprised her. She had no idea he meant to stay longer than a few hours. Where did he tell the First Order he was going and for how long?</p><p> </p><p>“I brought you all this way to fix your lightsaber.” Your. Not my, or the. <em>Your</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“My—are you serious?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t I look serious?” he deadpans. “The central turbolifts should be in this direction.”</p><p> </p><p>They find the lifts soon enough, but the mechanisms no longer function. “Wonderful,” Rey grouses, settling the strap of her pack, and then her quarterstaff, diagonally across her chest.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p> </p><p>“I would have thought it was obvious,” she imitates him, earning herself an eyeroll. “We’ve got to climb. And here I was, hoping I’d never have to do this again.” She takes a deep breath then jumps for the emergency escape rungs lining the shaft. “I hope you aren’t afraid of heights,” she calls, as Ben leaps across the adjoining chute.</p><p> </p><p>When they reach the top—five stories later—they find themselves in a cavernous space. It’s the central pyramid, a tower made almost entirely of the blue, crystalline material they saw from the air. The ocean roils in every direction. There is less evidence of neglect here, though a small bird takes flight in alarm from one of the rafters when they drop their packs loudly on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“Is it everything you hoped and dreamed?” she teases, stretching after the long ascent.</p><p> </p><p>Ben scans the room. “It’s plainer than other examples I’ve seen. They didn’t do much in the way of architecture.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe they thought the ocean view was grand enough,” she suggests. “The temple on Ahch-To was just a hollowed rock. I assumed that was because it was so old but maybe it was intentional. Connect you to nature or something.”</p><p> </p><p>“Perhaps,” he says but he sounds doubtful. “Normally there’s a focal point. A crystal, a statue, a meditation plinth, something.”</p><p> </p><p>They walk the length of the room, agitating the displaced bird. There are ghostly circles visible on the floor, a pattern helpfully laid out for group practice. When they reach the far end, Ben spots a panel inset into the wall. “Ah,” he declares, laying his hand flat against it. Nothing happens. Then he realizes his mistake. “There’s must be a matching one on the far wall. We’ll have to press them together.”</p><p> </p><p>Once Rey finds the second panel, the circles that appear to be drawn reveal themselves to be the tops of glass meditation plinths that spin gracefully out of the floor. A larger platform, probably for an instructor, emerges in the space between them.</p><p> </p><p>“This will do,” he says, with evident satisfaction.</p><p> </p><p>“What exactly will it do?”</p><p> </p><p>He extends a hand. The Force flares around them like a sudden wind burst before a storm. Their packs sail across the chamber, slamming into the side of the platform. “I do hope there wasn’t anything breakable in there,” Rey observes sarcastically.</p><p> </p><p>“The Jedi temple on Coruscant was entirely constructed around a natural stone peak called the Sacred Spire. There was a Force nexus inside that mountain. This temple works on a similar principle. Tython is extraordinarily rich in the Force and this structure—this vessel, the Tho Yor—is designed to act like a focusing crystal in a lightsaber. An antenna, if you prefer. It channels the majority of the energy into this particular space.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey stares at him blankly. “What does that have to do with my lightsaber?”</p><p> </p><p>“This is the perfect place to repair it,” he explains.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you happen to pack a couple of spare kyber crystals?” She can’t resist adding, “From what I’ve been told, they’re pretty hard to come by since the First Order destroyed Ilum.”</p><p> </p><p>He purses his lips in irritation but replies evenly, “As I remember that story, it was the Resistance that blew up Ilum. Credit where credit is due. And Ilum was never the only source of kyber crystals in the galaxy.” He lifts her knapsack and holds it out to her. “But you don’t need a new kyber crystal. You’re going to remake the old one.”</p><p> </p><p>She retrieves the severed halves of the weapon from the bag. “I didn’t realize that could be done.”</p><p> </p><p>“You can fix anything,” he says confidently. “Isn’t that true? The pieces and parts just tell you how they want to fit together. This will be no different.”</p><p> </p><p>He climbs onto the platform, a half-meter above the floor, and offers her a hand up. Memories flood in, turbulent as the water outside. How can she not think of the last time he stood like this, just before they did the damage they are here to correct? It wasn’t that long ago.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” he whispers. She must look as unsettled as she feels. “Trust me.”</p><p> </p><p>She does trust him. It’s lunacy, but she does. She wouldn’t have come this far otherwise. She takes his hand and joins him on the platform.</p><p> </p><p>They sit opposite one another, the two halves of the saber between them. It’s easy enough to get the broken fragments of crystal free from their settings. The shards are colorless, and look even less impressive loose, hardly worth all the trouble they’ve caused.</p><p> </p><p>“What do I do?” she asks uncertainly.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re going to refashion the crystal. Make it stronger. Make it yours. Then later, you can build your own housing. Maybe a double-bladed saber, like your quarterstaff. For that matter, you could build your own hilt <em>from</em> your staff. The weapon should feel like it belongs to you, not like a hand-me-down from someone else.”</p><p> </p><p>“Will it be red?” Her stomach twists at the thought.</p><p> </p><p>That catches him off guard. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“When I’ve done whatever you’re going to show me, will my blade be red?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” he says sharply. “That’s not why we’re here.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t understand. I thought…” She isn’t sure how to finish.</p><p> </p><p>“You thought because you came to me for help, that I was going to use that to my advantage. Coerce you or trap you into falling to the Dark Side.”</p><p> </p><p>“I thought that’s what you wanted,” she snaps, confused. “When you asked me to stay on the <em>Supremacy</em>, wasn’t my going over to the Dark Side part of the plan? Would the First Order have welcomed a sort-of-Jedi as their—” Their what? What would she have been to him? Every word that passes through her brain seems more fraught than the last: <em>leader, ruler, empress.</em></p><p> </p><p>Ben’s shoulders are tight with anger. “I don’t expect you to understand this, because you don’t know anything about my past. But I would <em>never</em> do that. To you or anyone else.” He struggles to compose himself. “And your lightsaber doesn’t just turn red because you’re suddenly tired of trying to be good all the time.” It feels like an accusation, but she isn’t entirely certain what she’s being accused of.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re off track,” he says abruptly. “Let’s start with fixing the crystal. You can worry about what color you want it to be later.” And then he frowns at her, as though he expects her to know what to do next.</p><p> </p><p>She picks up the halves and holds one in each palm. She closes her eyes and concentrates on observing them, listening to them. The fragments want to come back together. More than that—they long for it. Each is injured, diminished because it’s apart from the other. Their Force signatures are so muted, so…lonely is the only word that seems accurate. And she knows that if she could just heal that wound, bind their ragged edges together, the crystal would be more powerful than it was before for having survived the separation.</p><p> </p><p>But she can’t work out how to do it.</p><p> </p><p>She can perceive the flaws in each, can see exactly how they ought to fit together. Again and again, she tries to make the edges attach, bond. But something is in the way. It almost feels as if the Force itself is preventing her from succeeding but why would that be? Does the Force not want her to have a lightsaber? Maybe this is the final proof she was never meant to be a Jedi after all…</p><p> </p><p>“Rey, that’s enough.” Ben’s voice seems to drift down to her from a long way away. “That’s enough. Let go, Rey. Come back to me.”</p><p> </p><p>When she opens her eyes, she’s surprised to find herself lying on the platform, head cradled in Ben’s lap. “What happened?” she croaks.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve been trying for nearly two hours. I felt you start to fade. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”</p><p> </p><p>“I nearly had it so many times but it just…wouldn’t work.” Her lower lip quivers and she bites hard but a tear slips down her temple anyway. He wipes it carefully away.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not your fault. We’re both tired. I should have insisted we rest and eat something. Instead I yelled at you and pressured you to try before you were ready. If there’s failure here, it’s mine.”</p><p> </p><p>He’s bent over, brushing strands of hair back from her face so soothingly that another tear chases the first. She thinks of the lonely little crystals, yearning to be what they were always meant to be: together. “You know, as bad as I am at being a Jedi, I think you might be worse as a Darksider.”</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mahara_Kesh">Mahara Kesh</a> I based my descriptions of the exterior on canon images, but everything moving forward--the configuration of the interior, the uses of various spaces--came from my fevered imagination.</p><p>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sacred_spire">The Sacred Spire</a>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re too spent to explore any more of the temple so they eat in the meditation chamber. Ben doesn’t seem especially concerned about rationing food and water; Rey isn’t sure how to interpret that. Maybe he doesn’t intend them to be on Tython long enough for provisions to be an issue.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I ask you something?” she asks, picking at a First Order protein bar. It’s not the worst thing she’s ever eaten but in her short time away from Jakku, she’s definitely lost the ability to consume without caring about taste. “Don’t get angry.”</p><p> </p><p>“Go on,” he allows but with no real enthusiasm.</p><p> </p><p>“Before, you implied that if I knew more about your past then I would’ve known you’d never try to…I think you said ‘coerce’ or ‘trap’ me into going over to the Dark Side.” When he doesn’t respond, she prods, “Why wouldn’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>He takes a long swallow of water, doesn’t look at her when he answers. “Because that’s exactly what happened to me. I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m not making excuses for who I am or what I’ve done. But I reached out to someone for help and in exchange, I was put into situations where I had no good options. Every bad choice I made dug me deeper into a hole I could never get out of. I wouldn’t do that to you.” He pushes up off the floor and goes to the nearest window to stare at the ocean. The waves are heaving higher as a storm front moves in.</p><p> </p><p>“Snoke trapped you into going over to the Dark Side—?” she begins, but he cuts her off.</p><p> </p><p>“No, Rey, you don’t understand. You’re so smart about some things and so naïve about others. I am responsible for my own actions. I <em>chose</em> to go to Snoke. No one compelled me to do the things I’ve done since.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe I am naïve,” she agrees, “because I don’t understand you at all. I thought Darksiders were supposed to be evil, to enjoy hurting people and destroying things. I thought they were supposed to be cold and calculating and vicious. You’re none of those things. I can feel the Light inside you, right now.”</p><p> </p><p>“The Light is there, I’m not denying it. Just like the Darkness is inside you. Everyone has both. You can’t exorcise one or the other from yourself; it isn’t that easy. You choose, every day, every minute. You either embrace a part of your nature or you deny it. And then you live with the consequences of your choice.” He turns to face her. “The Light never did anything for me. People in my life who claimed to be on the side of the Light didn’t care for me or protect me. I’ve never been able to rely on anyone but myself, just like you. We’re both trying to survive in a universe that doesn’t give a damn about us.”</p><p> </p><p>“What does it mean to you, then, to be a Darksider?” she asks.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t really think about it, if I’m being honest. The earliest Force users didn’t believe in a Dark Side and a Light Side. They just believed the Force existed, that it had a will too complex for the average person to understand, and that each of us had a role to play in that. This concept of a divided Force came about much more recently. It was basically a feud between rival religious sects that somehow fundamentally changed the way we all think about good and evil.”</p><p> </p><p>“It doesn’t strike you as contradictory that you can be kind to me and want to slaughter the Resistance?”</p><p> </p><p>He blinks at her in undisguised astonishment. “I’ve seen you kill people, Rey. I’ve seen you stab guards to death with a lightsaber, screaming in fury. I’ve watched you blow TIE fighters out of the sky, felt your excitement doing it. Does that strike you as contradictory? Since you’re otherwise such a paragon of virtue?”</p><p> </p><p>Her cheeks burn, with anger or shame she isn’t sure. He continues, “We’re on opposite sides of a war. We both kill. You tell yourself that when I do it, it’s evil, but when you do it, it’s in service to a greater good. If you had succeeded in persuading Skywalker to come back to the Resistance, and your recruiting numbers suddenly exploded, would you have felt personally responsible for every one of those deaths? Because arguably, you would’ve been.”</p><p> </p><p>“So nothing means anything, then?” she shouts, flinging the rest of the protein bar across the room in disgust. “There’s no good or evil, everything is the same.”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t say that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not in so many words but you basically said—”</p><p> </p><p>“I said everyone makes choices every day. You decide what’s important to you. You decide what you have to do and what you can never do. You decide what you can live with. I tried to tell you before but you wouldn’t listen. Let the past die. All we are is the sum of our choices.”</p><p> </p><p>She jumps up, rigid with indignation. “Then why did you choose to stay on the <em>Supremacy</em>? I begged you not to do it. If you cared about me, why didn’t you choose better?” She spits the final word at him.</p><p> </p><p>He flinches. “I already told you. I’ve never been able to rely on anyone but myself.”</p><p> </p><p>“And where did that get you?” she demands sadly.</p><p> </p><p>“Supreme Leader of the galaxy,” he shoots back. “Beholden to no one, with the power to impact the lives of centillions.”</p><p> </p><p>“Despised and alone,” she hisses.</p><p> </p><p>Out on the horizon, lightning splits the sky.</p><p> </p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>He’s been gone so long night has fallen again. The meditation chamber is dark, the storm raging furiously outside. <em>He’ll go straight to the TIE fighter</em>, she thought in that first moment when he walked away. <em>He’ll leave me here alone, to die on the Deep Ocean.</em> But of course, the thought was absurd. Ben would never do such a thing. She has injured him and he has injured her, and they are each tending their wounds in solitude, the only way they know how.</p><p> </p><p>The intensity of the weather should frighten her. It’s far worse than anything she experienced on Ahch-To. But the age of the temple is comforting. Ben says it’s been sitting here for tens of thousands of years. Seems unlikely it would sink the night she happens to visit. Still, each time lightning strikes it feels as if her heart is trying to beat its way through her chest. After the first few crescendos, she tugs the tunic out of his pack and wraps it around herself.</p><p> </p><p>That’s how he finds her, curled up in a corner, wrapped in his clothing, eyes wide in the night. If he’s still offended he doesn’t let on, crossing the room and sitting next to her, so close she can feel his warmth through the fabric. “Are you alright?” he asks. They both know where the lightning is dragging her mind.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m a hypocrite,” she confesses. “I’m lecturing you on your immoral choices and all the while, we’re not talking about the fact that I murdered my parents.”</p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t murder your parents,” he disagrees. “And that dream changed my mind about the other one, too. I don’t think you had anything to do with the fire at Skywalker’s temple.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why not? What do mean, it changed your mind?”</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, I thought at first that maybe you were there that night, as a child, and you’d just forgotten. But I’m certain I was never on Jakku. I would absolutely remember that. And in the second dream, I saw you as an adult, when you should have been five or six years old at the time.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t think they’re traumatic memories that I’ve repressed or something?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I don’t. I think you’re having trouble dealing with what you admitted to yourself on the <em>Supremacy</em>. I think you have a lot of rage that’s tired of being ignored and it’s determined to make its way out of you, any way it can.”</p><p> </p><p>“The lightning,” she whispers.</p><p> </p><p>“The lightning.” He searches for her hand under the tunic, squeezes it supportively.</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t that a Dark Side ability?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s just an ability. Stop treating everything like it’s a clue. You are who you are. You’re just you. The other labels don’t matter.”</p><p> </p><p>“But on the hill, you said I was confusing dreams with visions. You said the fact that the stone showed me that night at the temple meant something important.”</p><p> </p><p>He shrugs. “I did say that. But visions are notoriously difficult to interpret. Maybe the Force showed us that because it wanted us to understand how profoundly we’re interconnected. Or it was trying to say, your dreams are the key to unlocking what’s going on inside you. I don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>Her voice is small in the darkness. “You truly don’t think I killed my parents?”</p><p> </p><p>“No. Though to be clear, even if you had, I wouldn’t shed a single tear over them. They sold you into slavery, an innocent little girl.” She whimpers softly and Ben wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “You have the right to hate them for that. You have the right to not forgive them for what they did.”</p><p> </p><p>She sniffles softly against his jersey. “But all the hate is only hurting me. They don’t feel a thing.” He looks down at her, disconcerted.</p><p> </p><p>Rey wipes impatiently at her tears. “Maybe that’s why we’re so woven together. We were both thrown away by people who were supposed to love us and take care of us. And then we were used and mistreated. We’re both damaged and livid about it, all the time. I just try to pretend like I’m not. You’re right, Ben. We’re the same.”</p><p> </p><p>Lightning strikes and everything clicks into place.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Stars</em>,” she gasps, sitting up. “That’s it. That’s the answer.”</p><p> </p><p>“The answer to what?”</p><p> </p><p>“Two that are one,” she breathes.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t follow.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey throws off the tunic. She grabs Ben’s hand and hauls him back to the platform where the remains of the lightsaber patiently wait.</p><p> </p><p>“Two that are one,” she repeats. “It’s from the Jedi texts I took from Ahch-To. One soul in two bodies. A dyad in the Force.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what any of that means,” he growls in growing frustration.</p><p> </p><p>“It means, we broke the lightsaber together. We have to fix it together.”</p><p> </p><p>His reluctance is immediate. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The crystal should be yours; the saber will be part of you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re part of me, don’t you see? You always have been, in ways I don’t begin to understand.” He’s still holding back, not telling her everything. “What is it?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s never been done,” he blurts. “Reforming a shattered kyber crystal.”</p><p> </p><p>That isn’t what she expects him to say. “Why didn’t you tell me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Because I believed—I still believe—that you can do it. You have natural abilities beyond anything I’ve ever seen. You’re exceptionally talented at repairs, at understanding materials and construction of systems. In this place, with the power of the Force flowing through you, I know you can do it. Adding me to the equation will spoil everything.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why would you say that?”</p><p> </p><p>He pulls his own saber from his belt and ignites it. The blade erupts from the hilt, jagged and blistering, terrifyingly beautiful. “You asked how a lightsaber turns red. It’s a ritual Darksiders do, called ‘bleeding’ the crystal. You pour all your ugliest emotions into it until you literally break its will to resist. You beat it into submission, compel it to do your bidding. You hurt it, Rey. This crystal couldn’t hold all the hatred I had inside me; it cracked. That’s why it’s so unstable.” He extinguishes the blade and the room goes black again, but not before she sees the bleakness of his expression. “You don’t want me to touch that.”</p><p> </p><p>“But I do. When I tried before I understood how they were supposed to go together but they just…wouldn’t. Some critical part was missing and I couldn’t work out what it was. It was you. We both have Light and Darkness. We don’t fit anywhere better than we fit with each other. Just like those lonely, broken little things.” She steps closer, slides her fingers through the silky hair curling around his neck. “All I am is the sum of my choices. I choose you,” she whispers against his lips.</p><p> </p><p>The sky outside the temple whitens, brilliant as day for an eternal second. Ben is rooted to the spot, bewildered and mute. The Force crackles and sparks with brash vitality. The air warms around them.</p><p> </p><p>“Help me fix the crystal,” she implores. “It wants us to, can’t you feel it? It’s so eager to be remade it’s practically vibrating.” He’s still transfixed, eyes blazing. She touches his face. “And once we’ve worked out how to do it, if you ever wanted to, we could try to heal yours.”</p><p> </p><p>Climbing up onto the platform, she sits back on her heels and gives him the space he needs to make up his own mind. When he sits opposite, she wants to shout for joy. Instead, she offers him half the crystal and takes the other half into her own palm. On impulse, she wraps her hand around his and closes her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>A core of heat and light builds steadily between them, until it’s so bright she can see it shining red through her eyelids. This is what they are supposed to do; she has never been more certain of anything. <em>Two that are one.</em> When the light fades and their fingers cool, one crystal, whole and complete, remains. It is not flawless, but its strength resides in its scars.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A hill I will die on is that Rey is NOT a Jedi and Ben is NOT a Sith (lazy, shorthand toy set labels notwithstanding). They are both pragmatic, action-oriented trauma victims who feel like they have to join a team to survive.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once the crystal is healed, repairing the rest of the weapon is fairly simple. The break in the hilt is a clean one that left all the circuitry intact in one half, and the power cell undamaged in the other. Ben guides her through the process, instructing her in how to use the Force to make minute adjustments to the components without disassembling the casing. She devises a plan to use the crossguard blade on his saber to weld the two pieces. It’s effective, if not very pretty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do you think the chances are it blows up as soon as I power it on?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Zero,” he smirks. Smirking is a thing Ben does now, to her amazement. “Stop stalling.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With a flutter of anticipation, she thumbs the activation matrix. The blade bursts free, illuminating the entire chamber. “What color is that?” she gasps.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Purple,” he murmurs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She takes a few practice swings. The saber is a fluid extension of her arm. It seems to obey her thoughts as readily as it does her body. It…it loves her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s perfect,” he agrees. “Do you know where purple falls on the color spectrum? Right between red and blue.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Is that true?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He nods. “You need a hilt worthy of that blade. I could see you with a purple saber-staff.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I like my quarterstaff just the way it is, thank you.” The radiance of the saber is so intense her eyes well but she doesn’t want to turn it off.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The storm has died down a bit while they’ve worked. The lightning has ended but the rain is still lashing the glass tower in great sheets. It’s loud, though not enough to drown out the thrum of the blade as Rey cuts and spins.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She can feel Ben’s approval. “You’re awfully pleased with yourself.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Pleased with you,” he amends. He leans against the black window. “The Resistance will like the purple. Very eye-catching on their recruiting posters.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She stops drilling. “What are you talking about? I’m not going back to the Resistance.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His face is obscured in the shadows cast by the saber but he sounds resigned. Stoic. “Of course you are, Rey. We both know it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I promise you, I’m not.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I knew from the beginning how this was going to end. That’s why I made sure they never saw me. You can go back on your own terms. Tell them you went on a quest to fix the saber or some nonsense. I’m guessing they won’t ask too many questions. They’ll be too relieved to have their Jedi back.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She switches the blade off, leaving them in darkness. “If you believed I’d go back, why come to Tython? Why help me fix this? Wouldn’t I just be using it against you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You needed a lightsaber. Now you have one.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re rather rubbish at strategy. Has anyone ever told you that, Supreme Leader?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks out across the ocean and huffs faintly. “Lots of people, as a matter of fact.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A question it has never occurred to her to ask suddenly crosses her mind. “Do you like being head of the First Order? Does it make you happy?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s…important work. Immense responsibility. Power to—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“—impact the lives of bajillions, I remember.” She joins him at the window. The glass is cool to the touch. “But does it make you happy?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He expels a shaky breath, leaving a little cloud of fog on the surface. “I don’t know what happiness feels like. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Me, either,” she offers, laying her head against his chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I swore to myself,” his voice rumbles low under her cheek, “that no one would ever have power over me again. Not like my parents, Skywalker, Snoke. No one.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I understand,” she whispers. “The First Order is this enormous shell you’ve wrapped around yourself, to keep everyone away from you. Endless layers of troops and ships and battle stations. And at the center of it all is you, encased in a cloak and gloves and a mask, not one single millimeter of you exposed. Invulnerable. But what if it isn’t protecting you, Ben? What if it’s all just a giant prison?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She reaches for his hands and finds them trembling. “One thing always stayed with me from the nightmares, even when I couldn’t remember them. It was you screaming, ‘I didn’t want this.’ I keep wondering why that, in particular, sticks in my mind. Possibly it’s because you made it so clear how important choice is to you. You define yourself by your choices. It seems obvious to me that you were driven to do things you would never have done on your own. But you insist that everything was your choice, so your responsibility. Maybe you tell yourself that because it’s the only way you can live with the pain of the things you were made to do. It gives you some illusion of control when, in reality, you never had any. Maybe I kept having that nightmare because you kept having that nightmare. Reminding yourself that you didn’t choose <em>any</em> of this is the only way you can ever hope to start healing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He wrenches apart from her, backs away. “Healing, is that what you think I need?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “Isn’t that why you brought me here, so I could learn to heal?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The crystal,” he snarls. “For the lightsaber.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are you sure about that? Because frankly, it’s not a very believable story. You say you knew I would go back to the Resistance but you came charging across the galaxy anyway. You helped me remake the lightsaber—something I couldn’t have done on my own, not like this—even though you assumed I’d be using it to rally armies against you. On the surface, your motivations are a little muddled.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“On the surface?” he demands, lurching forward. She refuses to give way, even as he towers over her. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It means, we both know what’s really going on,” she sighs. “You called me a coward but I made my choice. I’m here and I intend to stay. Now you’re the one who’s afraid. Afraid to give me the power to hurt you. Knowing what you want,” she takes the last step across the chasm between them, “but not brave enough to see it thr—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s kissing her before she can finish. It’s not like their first kiss, nothing unhurried or tender in how he touches her. There’s desperation in the way they cling together, as if they both know this is a stolen season. Rey’s back meets the wall before she’s aware she is moving. She tries to embrace him but he catches both of her wrists and pins them against the glass. Then he jerks away, pressing his forehead against hers, breathing hard.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ben?” She’s losing him, she can tell. She just doesn’t know why.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inside him is a maelstrom unlike anything she has sensed in another being. His emotions churn, violent as the sea outside. Despair and hope are at war; suspicion and anxiety and cynicism are suffocating faith and joy and peace. But under the anarchy is a seed, a dazzling seed of terrified love and heartsick longing, if only she can reach it, nurture it, make it grow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Carefully, she frees a hand from his grasp and caresses his face. “Look at me,” she implores. When he can finally meet her eyes, she smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring way. “Trust me. Choose me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He buries his face in the curve of her neck with a strangled moan. She holds him like that, stroking his hair as the rain fills the room with its music. “It’s late. Why don’t we lie down?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He stiffens in her arms. “If we do this, Rey, there’s no going back for me. Ever. You need to know that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I do,” she promises, leading him to the platform, the bedrolls, an undefined future. “I do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you believe now?” she asks quietly, following the contours of his collarbone with her nose.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hmmm?” He’s only partially awake. The sky is rose-gold, framed by the nearest pane of glass. They haven’t gotten much sleep. “Believe what?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Two that are one,” she reminds him, propping her chin on her hands, layered over his heart. The sun is just above the horizon and in the fragile light, his eyes are more green than brown. Her stomach flutters with want.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We don’t need the Jedi to tell us what we already know,” he counters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And what is it we already know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His voice is so solemn it makes her ache. “What we are to each other.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She kisses him for that, an act superbly familiar even after so few hours. “What if it’s more, though? What if it goes beyond that?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He coaxes a curl behind her ear. “Goes beyond how?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We stopped time. We healed a kyber crystal. Maybe our powers somehow work better together. They make something new, something stronger. I wonder,” she hesitates, “what else we could do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s darkly amused, she can tell. “Please don’t tell me you’re hoping us spending the night together <em>fixed</em> me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her hair mostly hides the flush of embarrassment but he must feel the heat of her skin. “No, of course not. That’s not…I didn’t mean that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good.” He gives her a searching look but doesn’t press the point. “What did you mean?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey rolls onto her back. The ceiling soars high above them. Somewhere in the rafters, the resident bird stirs, no doubt aggravated by their continued presence. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a lot of time to think,” she teases, as he lifts her closest hand to his waiting mouth. “Heal the crystal, <em>something something</em>, end the war. I haven’t worked the middle part out just yet.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben laughs—he actually laughs—and shifts closer, curling himself around her. “As soon as you figure it out, let me know. I hope it goes without saying that I prefer this to fighting you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His contentment wafts across the space between them, his aura quiet and easy in a way she has never experienced it. “I wonder,” she muses, “—and don’t call me naïve again, please—I wonder if there’s anything to the idea that we share something between us. The text wasn’t very clear. The word was soul, I think.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You think we share a soul?” he repeats with mock seriousness. “Not two weeks ago you called me a lying bastard.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I only called you a bastard. You called me a liar.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Soulmates, clearly.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“As I said, the text was ambiguous. Maybe that’s not the best word to use. Possibly we share something else.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Such as?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She thinks for a moment. “Have you ever seen an hourglass? It’s a sort of low-tech chrono.” He nods as she continues, “I saw one once, at Old Meru’s on the Pilgrim’s Road. Maybe we’re like that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have no idea where you’re going with this,” he says, but his tone clearly signals that he doesn’t mind in the least.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The hourglass has two, connected sides and the sand slides back and forth between them. Maybe you and I have a fixed amount of Light and Darkness between us. It shifts back and forth like the sand. You feel calmer right now. More peaceful. Maybe that’s because I stopped being such a…what did you call me? A paragon of virtue?” She’s trying to flirt, as best she knows how, but his face <em>closes</em>. “Ben?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He throws the bedroll back and sits up so suddenly she’s frozen in confusion, but she manages to get hold of his arm before he leaves the platform entirely. “What is it? What’s wrong?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you really believe that?” he chokes. At first, she thinks he’s angry but then she realizes—he’s questioning whether she’s right.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was only speculating. Talking off the top of my head. Why are you so upset?” She pulls again at his elbow but he doesn’t lie back down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We should get up. Eat something,” he says, looking around the floor for his scattered clothes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, no.” Rey sits up, winding her arms around his neck, molding herself to his back. “You’re not shutting me out, not now. Talk.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He swallows hard. “If I thought there was even a chance you were right—” he begins, but can’t seem to finish.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What?” she prompts, nuzzling his shoulder. “You wouldn’t want to…share my Light?” It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud and she smiles sheepishly at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He isn’t smiling back. “Not if it meant you becoming like me,” he answers somberly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But,” she whispers, combing her fingers through his hair, “I don’t understand. When I came to the <em>Supremacy</em>, you wanted me to turn.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I wanted <em>you</em>. To stay, with me. You going over to the Dark Side was the only way that was possible while Snoke was alive.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And now that he’s not? You don’t really think the First Order would allow you to—?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The First Order knows nothing about the Force,” he interrupts. “You could tell them you were Grand Inquisitor of the Cult of Old Meru’s and they wouldn’t know any better. They submit because they’re afraid of the consequences if they don’t. And they like the optics of having a powerful Force wielder at their head. Imagine the prestige if they could claim two.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A tiny chill rips through her. “Imagine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“When you called out to me, did you really think I was going to make you turn? Against your will?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She selects her words carefully. “I thought you would probably see it as a capitulation. And you’d most likely confine me somewhere, with my turning being a condition of getting out. If your generals didn’t demand my execution first.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s dumbfounded. “Then why do it?” he demands. “Why jeopardize yourself like that?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She’s not sure she can make him understand, not entirely certain she understands herself. “Ever since Crait, I’ve been so conflicted about everything. Knowing I was supposed to hate you but never able to. Thinking about you, all the time, even though I shouldn’t. Having that nightmare practically every night. It gnawed at me, a mystery I couldn’t solve but I think I always knew deep down that you were the crux of it.” She exhales. “I ought to have been happy, escaping Jakku. But somehow, I was lonelier surrounded by all those other people. I’ve never felt closer to someone than I did that night on Ahch-To. Until last night,” she confesses, burying her face self-consciously in his hair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben encircles her hands, still clasped around his neck, and kisses them fiercely. “You’re not alone,” he promises, as he did once before. “You don’t ever have to be again, not if you don’t want to.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Everything would be different, that’s what you said at the seeing stone,” she recalls. “If I had only stayed, everything would have been different for both of us. I wondered what you meant but I was too afraid to ask. What did you expect to happen when you came to Tython?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He shrugs tightly. “You were obviously struggling to carve out a place in the Resistance. You never seemed enthusiastic about becoming a Jedi, a position I understand all too well. I assumed you’d had enough of their unreasonable expectations. You wanted a break from being so…selfless.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She slides around on the bedroll, shifting until she can settle across his lap. “You really believed I’d go back. That I was just using you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“More like, testing the waters.” His fingertips know their way around the sensitive skin behind her knees. “Toying with the idea of mutiny but with no clear intentions beyond that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And thinking all that, you came anyway.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I did,” he acknowledges.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why?” she manages, making herself meet his gaze. “Why compromise yourself like that?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now it’s his turn to redden. “You know why. You’ve known from the start. Even without the bond, I couldn’t keep it from you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her mouth is too dry and the words won’t come easily. “On Jakku, I couldn’t allow myself to think about anything but surviving. I didn’t have the luxury of dreaming or wanting. Once I got away, before I even understood what was happening, I was caught up with the Resistance and the Jedi. Neither of them is very big on wanting things for yourself, either. But honestly, it might have been enough, if only I didn’t know you existed somewhere in the universe.” She ghosts a kiss over the corner of his mouth. “You make me want things, just for myself. Sublimely selfish things.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do you want, Rey?” he rasps, hands tightening possessively at the bends of her hips. “Name anything in the galaxy and it’s yours.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not like that. Not jewels or moons or legions to command.” Desire electrifies his Force signature as she grazes her lips along the scar that marks his face, the scar she gave him a few months and a lifetime ago.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>With one, smooth motion, he overturns them both onto the bedroll. “What, then?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This,” she answers simply. “I wish we could stop time. Again.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us,'" Ben recites. He offers her a smile that is boyish, almost shy in its gentleness. “You make me want things, too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Tell me,” she whispers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His shyness disappears. “I’d rather show you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us," was scribed by the great Alderaanian mythologist, J.R.R. Tolkien. (Ben Solo would *totally* be a LOTR fanboy.)</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Meru">Old Meru's</a>
</p>
<p>BTW, I didn't want to give away the game too early, but if anyone reading isn't already aware, the whole, "I didn't want this," bit of dialogue is taken from "The Rise of Kylo Ren" comic run.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I think I’ve figured it out!” Rey calls across the long, humid chamber. “It’s quite ingenious, really.”</p><p> </p><p>They are investigating the lower levels of the temple, the ones hidden from view by the massive barrier island. This particular space is empty except for the many shallow, circular pools cut into its floor. Water cascades down a series of large, stepped shelves lining the wall behind them, the excess disappearing into a narrow trough.</p><p> </p><p>“Here, let me show you.” She dips a finger into the nearest pool and sketches a drawing in the mildew on the wall. “The temple itself is shaped like a diamond and it’s sitting inside this enormous…box.” She draws a rectangle around the widest point of the diamond. “I have no idea what it might be made of, how it can be so strong and float at the same time.”</p><p> </p><p>“The island is a breakwater. Its purpose is to protect the temple from the heaviest swells.”</p><p> </p><p>“Exactly. Now, we’re right at sea level here. But that water—” she points to the steady flow running down the incline on the wall, “—isn’t salt water, it’s fresh water. There’s a funnel system channeling all the rain from the upper levels. I’m guessing it passes through filtration layers so the people who lived here could drink it. And then it flows through the lower levels on its way back into the sea.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ballast,” Ben observes.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know that word.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oceangoing vessels require extra weight in their holds to keep them low and stable in the water. I imagine enough rain held inside the temple would serve the same function.”</p><p> </p><p>“Clever. The water kept the inhabitants alive, allowed them to bathe, and steadied the city all at the same time.”</p><p> </p><p>He crouches to examine one of the pools. “At first, I thought these were open to the ocean. Since we’re at sea level, it was the simplest explanation. But you’re saying the rain water is collected here before it leaves the structure. It’s leaching out, not in.”</p><p> </p><p>“Precisely. When we were two levels down earlier today, and we saw that elaborate pump, the one powered by the motion of the ship in the water, I assumed it was there in case of a breach in the hull. But I think it may be part of this system. Maybe it uses some sort of suction to pull the fresh water out. It’s brilliant.”</p><p> </p><p>“That would explain why there’s no evidence of marine life in here. They can’t get in from the outside.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t imagine the Journeyers would have enjoyed sharing their baths with hungry sea monsters,” she jokes. “And ocean water would be much colder than this is. The rain must be heated with solar panels or something. Maybe it’s conducted over or through the glass to warm it.” She cups both hands under the stream arcing between two of the shelves. Even after all this time, she can’t get used to the idea of planets covered in water.</p><p> </p><p>“Shall we honor the engineers responsible for this magnificent achievement?” Ben asks. He’s already pulling off his shirt.</p><p> </p><p>“You want to…oh.” She can’t help but stare at the lines and planes of him. He’s mesmerizing, powerful and graceful. Only when he looks up in surprise does she realize how strongly she must be broadcasting. “Sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aren’t you joining me?” He seems to realize what he’s said only after the words are out. He looks at her uncertainly, still clutching the jersey.</p><p> </p><p>Rey tugs at the tie holding her tunic closed. “Yes,” she says decisively. “Yes, I’ll join you.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>The pool isn’t deep but because it’s translucent, it’s impossible to tell that without climbing in. The water barely reaches Rey’s shoulders when her feet touch the bottom. Ben leans against the side, arms resting comfortably along the edge.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you thinking?” she wonders.</p><p> </p><p>“Wishing I had thought to pack soap,” he answers seriously, but when she snickers he grins softly at her. “You?”</p><p> </p><p>She tilts back into the water, letting the strands of hair lift and float away. She’s washed it more in the past few months than in the entire span of her life before. “It strikes me that you left the First Order at least—” she does a quick mental tabulation, “—four standard days ago. You don’t seem in a hurry to get back, either.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve been distracted,” he murmurs, in a voice so low and charged she feels as if the very molecules in the air are urging her closer to him. But that will have to wait; there’s more she wants to know first.</p><p> </p><p>“What did you tell them?”</p><p> </p><p>“I told the few who had any right to ask that I was in search of an ancient Sith amulet.” He rakes his fingers absently across the surface of the water. “Like I said, they know nothing about the Force.”</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t your ship have a tracker?”</p><p> </p><p>“Once I got beyond the boundaries of the Core Worlds, I disabled it as a precaution. But I have no reason to believe they would try to follow me. I’m sure Hux is delighted with the chance to plan a little treason unobserved.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who is Hux?”</p><p> </p><p>“One of my generals.”</p><p> </p><p>“A troublesome one, it sounds like.”</p><p> </p><p>Ben grimaces. “It’s almost amusing that the Resistance hates me so much. Hux is the one responsible for all the First Order’s worst atrocities. Starkiller Base was his project. He proposed and oversaw the destruction of the Hosnian system. And he’s the one that spearheaded the development of the hyperspace tracking technology used to exterminate your fleet. I had nothing to do with any of those things, though you’d never know it from reading the Holonet.”</p><p> </p><p>She joins him at the wall. “Does it bother you? What the galaxy believes about you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not especially,” he replies too fast and for the first time, he’s lying to her. Or maybe to himself. “The more brutality people think I’m capable of, the easier it is to hold my position.”</p><p> </p><p>“You wanted me to know the truth,” she points out. “It worried you that I might hold you responsible for those horrendous things.”</p><p> </p><p>His tone is defensive when he finally answers. “Should it worry me? Believing the worst didn’t stop you from reaching out when you were in trouble. It didn’t stop you from sharing my bed.”</p><p> </p><p>The water between them <em>ripples</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Ben looks away first, his jaw set with tension. “There’s something else you need to know. Hux was Snoke’s pet. When I came to on the <em>Supremacy</em>, he was standing over me. I had no time to think up a cover story. He demanded to know what happened. I suppose I could have just murdered him—” he glances at her, defiant, “—but instead I lied and told him you killed Snoke.”</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, she’s speechless. It’s stupid, really. She’s known all along that Ben must have done something like this. How else could he have survived the discovery of Snoke’s assassination and replaced him on the throne? But hearing him admit it steals her breath.</p><p> </p><p>“And he believed you? He believed that I killed Snoke, eight guards and knocked you unconscious all by myself? He must not be terribly bright.”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t give him an opportunity to contradict me. That doesn’t mean he believed it and it certainly hasn’t stopped him from plotting behind my back.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t understand. If Hux suspects you murdered Snoke, if he’s constantly scheming against you, why don’t you do something about it?”</p><p> </p><p>He gives her a piercing look. “What exactly would you suggest I do? Kill him in cold blood? I won’t pretend I haven’t thought about it but it’s fairly shocking to hear it coming from you.”</p><p> </p><p>Now she’s angry. “So what will this general do when you return from your adventure with Snoke’s murderer on your arm? Or will you just tell him I’m an amulet and dare him to argue?”</p><p> </p><p>“I can handle Hux,” he insists. “But you need to appreciate the situation you’re walking into. It won’t always be like this.” He jerks his chin to take in the space and she knows what he means. <em>We won’t always be alone. We won’t always be safe. We won’t always be just us.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Rey pushes off the wall and makes her way to the other side of the pool, as far apart as they can be and still remain together. “When did you say you’d be back?”</p><p> </p><p>“I took enough supplies for a week or more.” He’s staring at her and as guarded as his face is, there’s something else there, too. He’s afraid. “Time is running out. The Resistance won’t stay on Tython forever, either.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re assuming they haven’t left already,” she snaps.</p><p> </p><p>Ben’s eyes lose focus for a beat. “They’re still here,” he says quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“How do you—?” And then it hits her. “You can sense your mother. Does she know you’re on Tython? Has she known we’re together all along?” The idea of Leia waiting back at camp, fully aware that Rey has run away with her son, is mortifying.</p><p> </p><p>“No.” He’s studying her closely, trying to unpack her reaction. “That connection has been closed for a long time. I’ve had protections in place since I entered the system. Mental shields. It’s something you should learn.”</p><p> </p><p>“Apparently, the number of things I need to learn is nearly infinite.” The water is warm but she feels a creeping coldness in her heart.</p><p> </p><p>“I told you there was no going back for me and I meant it. But if you’ve changed your mind—”</p><p> </p><p>“I haven’t,” she interrupts, shaking her head firmly. “I chose you. And I’m going to go on choosing you. You can keep trying to infuriate me and frighten me but you won’t succeed in pushing me away.” The scowl on his face fractures minutely, blue sky through a hurricane. She presses on, “But it seems to me that before we go any further with this, you’re the one that has to decide. Do you want virtuous, noble, perfect Rey to kiss your forehead and be your conscience? Or do you want dark, wicked, greedy Rey to warm your bed and help you slaughter your enemies? Because neither one of those fantasies is <em>me</em>, Ben. I need to know it’s really <em>me</em> you want.”</p><p> </p><p>He crosses the pool in a flash, kicking up a wake that sloshes noisily over the edges and spills along the floor. He cages her in place, enormous hands on either side of her arms. “Don’t you think I feel the same way? When you keep calling me Ben and spinning fairytales about how every hideous thing I’ve ever done hasn’t really been my fault? Is it <em>me</em> you’re choosing or is it some figment of your imagination? Because if you think we’ll go back and make friends with Hux, end the war, start some golden age of galactic peace—you’re going to be tragically disappointed.”</p><p> </p><p>The simultaneous impulses to hold him close and shove him away strain so hard in either direction of her brain that she is light-headed. She can’t think clearly. “I’d like to get out now.”</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t argue, merely drops his hands and steps back. She feels his eyes boring into her as she leaves the pool, as she pulls on each article of clothing, as she walks away and leaves him behind. Alone.</p><p> </p><p>~~~</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Something has gone terribly wrong. This is the place he is supposed to be safe but she has hurt him. </em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Rather, they have hurt him.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Or they are both hurting. It’s all so jumbled.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Slices of white heat fracture the black air and then everything—everything—is burning.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>He is here, looking terrified and amazed and adoring.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>No.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>NO!</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>I never…I didn’t want this.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Is he the one that says it? Is she?</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>The heat is intense. Lightning splits the sky. Bodies are aflame.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>She wants to stop. Is that even possible? Can one simply choose to stop?</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>He is still here and there is no going back and that is everything.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>She doesn’t want another end.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>She wants a beginning.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>Rey bolts up clawing at the fabric of the bedroll as if it means to strangle her. She fell asleep alone under the vast emptiness of the meditation tower but from the other side of the platform she hears Ben panting as he jolts back into consciousness. Kicking the roll clear of her legs, she finds him in the dark, peppering his face with feverish kisses. “It’s you I want. All of you. Whatever you are. Whatever you choose to call yourself. Just be with me and let me be with you.”</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>He holds her so tightly it hurts. “Are you sure? I might never be the man you imagined. I may never live up to the Ben in your head.”</p><p> </p><p>“You are who you are,” she whispers fervently. “You’re just you. The rest doesn’t matter. Not to me.”</p><p> </p><p>Something incinerates inside him, seared away in the radiant fire of her acceptance. From the ashes, the most ethereal shoots push up, starving for warmth and light. It feels like grace, newborn.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey is running full tilt across the landing pad, lightsaber streaking purple in the sunshine. The TIE sits alone, the only evidence of life in this place. She needs to get to the other side. Looking back is not an option. He’s right behind her, she can sense it. It’s not fair that someone as massive as he is should be so fast, too. <em>Massive—that’s it. </em>If she tries to go around, he’ll catch her. But if she goes through, well, that bulk ought to have at least some disadvantages. It’s only right.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the last possible moment, she leaps straight at the ship, extinguishing the saber in mid-air and sailing between the wing apertures on its front. She tucks and rolls across the ground for an instant before riding the momentum up and through the second set. In less than two seconds, she has put the fighter squarely between them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben leans on one arm against the far wing, laughing in admiration at her ploy. “Are you part charhound?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not that I know of. The ragged, mangy bit might be Jakku steelpecker.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“If you’re afraid you’ll lose, you could just yield and spare me chasing you all over the sector.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I thought you liked chasing me. You do it so well,” she says innocently, but he doesn’t miss the mischievous glint in her eye.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Are we sparring or we are running?” he questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She decides to come clean. “There’s a small problem.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’s that?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My lightsaber doesn’t want to fight you anymore.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He gapes at her. “You’re joking.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She shakes her head. The hair she tied into a hasty knot this morning has mostly come loose and sticks to the damp patches on the back of her neck. A stiff breeze off the ocean makes her shiver.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I could feel it as soon as we started. It’s…reluctant. Hesitant. It will defend me but it’s not at all happy to go on the offense against you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looks confused. “I have never heard of anything like that. The light saber comes to feel as if it’s part of the wielder but I’ve never heard of one actively communicating.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not like I’m having a conversation with it.” She steps lightly through the aperture, mimicking a two-sided interaction. “<em>Please hit him, won’t you? No, sorry, I don’t think I will.</em>” She powers the blade back on. “It’s just an impression. An intuition.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He circles around his own wing, crimson saber still lit. “Does it understand we don’t actually intend to harm each other?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not sentient. It isn’t having thoughts. It just…resists. Like trying to push two magnets together. They aren’t objecting to it. They just won’t go.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What would happen if we switched weapons?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You mean after I sliced my hand off?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Very funny.” He reverses his saber and offers her the hilt. She takes it but the impish cast returns to her face and she quickly backs away, leveling her own blade at his chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Rubbish at strategy,” she mouths. “I think my odds just improved rather dramatically, don’t you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did they? I wouldn’t be too sure,” he says. He throws out a hand and her weapon leaps from her grip and flies, still lit, into his waiting palm. “If it likes me enough that it doesn’t want to fight me, it stands to reason that it will listen when I call.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She can’t help but smile. “It’s not that it likes you. It’s more than that. You’re part of it. I knew it the first second I touched it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What does it feel like?” he wonders, voice tender.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Like it loves me,” she whispers, lifting up on tiptoes to kiss him deeply. The sabers hum in harmony. “You told me you poured all your hurts and hatred into this crystal and it cracked. I think you poured all your love into mine and made it whole. And someday, if you’ll let me, I’ll return the favor.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His eyes are fathomless. “Turn off your weapon,” he growls.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A frisson of anticipation races up her spine. “Because you think you’ve won?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looms over her, blocking out the harsh glare of the sun. “Because I’m going to carry you inside this ship and make you forget your own name.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She turns off the saber, drops it into his outstretched hand. “I yield.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Have you seen my boots?” she yells from the open hatch at the top of the TIE. “I can’t possibly have lost them in this tiny space.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You lost them before you made it into that tiny space,” he calls over his shoulder. “I found them by the landing gear. They’re right here waiting for you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s sitting on the very edge of the temple platform, long legs dangling, watching the twin moons ascend over the restive ocean. Rey drops down beside him, pulling the boots on and leaning her head against his shoulder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ashla and Bogan,” she says with a hint of pride. She has no idea which is which, but that’s beside the point.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s impressed. “I thought you said you knew nothing about Tython or its history.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I only recently heard that story. Lightsiders exiled to one, darksiders to the other. Just think, if we had lived then, the Jedi would have separated us.” Her brow furrows in disapproval.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The word ‘exiled’ is a bit misleading, I think. The lightsiders were sent to Ashla specifically so they could spend all their time meditating about Bogan—about the Dark Side—and vice versa. It wasn’t really a punishment. It was a method of bringing the two factions together, encouraging each to come closer to a middle path, a more nuanced understanding of the Force.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She slips her fingers through his. “I prefer your telling of the story. A middle path. I like that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We’ll need to find one. Or blaze one,” he says against her temple. “Not Jedi or Sith, just ourselves. It isn’t going to be easy, Rey.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A lesson you learn quickly on Jakku: the most precious things are the ones you’re willing to fight for.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He lifts her hand to his mouth, leaving a feather-soft kiss on the inside of her wrist. “You haven’t called me Ben since yesterday,” he observes, careful not to look at her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I didn’t think you wanted me to,” she counters. “You said it was part of my imaginary, fairytale version of you. To be honest, I’m not sure I can get used to calling you by the other name but I’ll try if that’s what you prefer.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Before, when you called me that, it felt like you were deliberately trying to chain me to my old life and I hated it. Hated remembering. Hated being so weak and sentimental. Mostly, I hated how much I liked the way it felt when you said it. Just now, when we were making love, I realized I wanted you to call me by that name. I want you to have part of me that no one else is allowed to have. Once we get back to the <em>Steadfast</em>—” he gives her a sidelong glance, uncertain if she is still prepared to move ahead with their plan, “—you won’t be able to call me that in public. Not ever, Rey. But when we’re alone, I think…I think it would be alright.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The magnitude of the gift he is offering is not lost on her. She nuzzles the soft spot below his ear, whispering, “Thank you, Ben,” and letting her lips graze his lobe. The shiver that courses through his body is echoed even in his presence in the Force. It gives her a heady rush of possessiveness. <em>Mine</em>, she thinks. No one has ever been hers and it’s delicious, a slice of jogan fruit dripping sweetness on her tongue.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“When do we leave?” she wonders. No matter what the future holds, there will never be another time like this for them, no other sanctuary like Mahara Kesh, place of healing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We should go tomorrow. It will take a full cycle to get there, assuming they haven’t left the sector in my absence. That puts me back within the week I promised, and it means we don’t have to resupply along the route. The water and rations will hold as long as we don’t delay any more than that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And do you have a plan to handle your generals once we rendezvous?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The beginnings of one,” he allows. She waits patiently but he doesn’t volunteer more detail.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Care to share it?” she prompts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll tell them it was me who killed Snoke. I’ll explain about the <em>Qotsisajak</em>—the Code of the Sith—and the Rule of Two, all of it. Convince them it was my duty as an apprentice to grow in strength and skill until the precise moment I could surpass my master. He offered no mercy and he expected none in return.” His tone is as cold as the night wind.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But you’re not a Sith,” she points out. At his raised eyebrows, she nods in understanding. “That’s right. I remember now. They know nothing about the Force. They won’t argue.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not only won’t they argue, none of them will even care except Hux. And Hux I can deal with.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do I want to know what that means?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It won’t be something pleasant. You need to be prepared for that reality. If you intend to share this life with me, then you have to know that—at least for now—this is what it is.” He takes her face in his hands, drops his voice so low it’s hard to hear over the surf crashing against the barrier. “There’s still time to find the Resistance. If that was what you needed, I could…I could let you go.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“But I couldn’t let you go. That’s how we ended up here, remember?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Once we leave Tython, there’s no undoing it. For you, I mean.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She shrugs. “Then we’ll finally be on equal footing. It wasn’t really fair, my having a contingency plan this entire time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“This isn’t a joke, Rey. You do realize that the Resistance will brand you a traitor? My mother, your new friends…they’ll never trust you again once they learn you’re with me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She pictures Rose, looking hurt each time she tried, and failed, to connect with Rey. Then Leia, wary and distant, wanting to help but always putting the hypothetical needs of the group over the actual needs of the individual. Finn appears next, betrayed and injured, defended by Poe who regards her suspiciously. “I’m sorry for that. Truly. When some time has passed, I’d like to try and reach out to them, if only to explain why I had to do what I did.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What will you tell them?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That it was the only thing I could do. The only thing I’ve wanted to do since I’ve known you. And maybe I’m just telling myself this to justify my own selfishness. But I have to believe that the impulse was so strong because the Force wants us to be together. Why else would we connect through the bond even when we hated each other? There’s a reason, I know it.” He looks unconvinced. “How many wars have been fought in the galaxy in the past hundred years? Every time, it plays out the same way. One side gets stronger, the other resists, trillions die. It’s an old song and we all know the words. I’m not claiming you and I will bring about a ‘golden age of galactic peace.’ I’m just saying, what can it hurt to try another way?” She gazes out over the ocean, at the twin trails of silvery brightness that beckon them forward.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I never hated you,” Ben confesses quietly. “Everything would have been so much easier if only I could have hated you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She shifts around, straddling his legs. His body is solid and warm, an anchor of comfort in the darkness. “Easier maybe, but not better. Like I said before, the most precious things are the ones you’re willing to fight for.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Aren’t you afraid?” he asks abruptly. “Of what’s coming?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>You can lie to everyone else, including yourself, but not to me. Never to me.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes,” she admits. “I’m afraid. But you’ll be with me. We’ll find the path.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He presses his lips hard to her forehead. “I love you,” he breathes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know,” she says joyously, wrapping her hands around his neck. “And I love you. That’s how I know it’ll be alright.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben tugs her closer, crushing the air from her lungs with the strength of his embrace. They sit, enveloped in each other, until the moons are higher than the shadowy tower above them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Force <em>swoons</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s colder now and she wants nothing more than to spend these final hours in his arms, whatever dreams may come. “What shall we do with our last night?” she whispers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And Ben Solo, Supreme Leader of the galaxy, blushes in the moonlight. “I was hoping I could persuade you to join me at the bathing pools again. I ruined my grand seduction plan the last time we were there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rey nods solemnly. “Absolutely. I believe in second chances.”</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Charhound">Charhounds</a>
</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Steelpecker">Steelpeckers</a>
</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Code_of_the_Sith">The Qotsisajak</a>
</p>
<p>I hope you enjoyed my little story. I was bound and determined to finish at least one more before my one-year AO3 anniversary. Sharing these characters with you has given me a lot of joy in an otherwise dark time and I'm very grateful to every single person who read and took the time to leave a kudo or a comment. Love you all!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is from this gorgeous poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:</p><p>You, darkness, that I come from<br/>I love you more than all the fires<br/>that fence in the world,<br/>for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone<br/>and then no one outside learns of you. </p><p>But the darkness pulls in everything-<br/>shapes and fires, animals and myself,<br/>how easily it gathers them! -<br/>powers and people- </p><p>and it is possible a great presence is moving near me. </p><p>I have faith in nights.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>